After Hours·5,453 discussions

Walking a fine line

Locked

blog root

Topic

have to start somewhere

In reply to Walking a fine line

OK, first blog entry…

I work with Vendors to create and make available White Papers, Webcasts, etc. on TechRepublic and the rest of CNET Networks business sites (News.com, ZDNet, IT Papers, and BNET.) I have the kind of job that leaves my parents with little to say when they’re asked “what does your son do for a living?”

For those who know what tech white papers are and how they are used, I describe my job this way: on a good day, I make two groups very happy at the same time – I make the person who finds the white paper they need happy because they found the information they needed and the vendor that made it available happy because they were able to share their ideas with a potential customer.

So why choose this topic to blog (yes, it is a verb too) on? Because I can share both sides of the story and hopefully get some insight for the community on how to make these connections between vendors and IT Professionals better.

It is a fine line, I won’t be making judgments about how specific vendors approach the market – I’ll leave that to the pundits. I hope to explore how these items connect. The Trivia geek has some interesting thoughts on the topic here

Choice, Voice and Control…

In reply to Walking a fine line

Full disclosure: I am an employee of TechRepublic’s parent company, CNET Networks, and work with
TechRepublic’s IT Directory, a repository of 60,000+ pieces of vendor
content.

At one point
not that long ago, publishers covered the goings-ons of vendors in the
industry, customers and vendors went to trade shows to meet with each
other and to get the latest from vendors and their peers, and then if
someone was interested in a product they would call in a vendor to give
more detail.

We’ve come a long way. You now have the ability to search sites like
TechRepublic for vendor information, speak with your peers about all
sorts of topics, and you can blog (or read other people’s blogs) on
these items to your hearts content. This change has occurred in the
space of 10 years and have radically changed the way IT buyers research
vendors and products and the way vendors communicate to their customers
and prospects. The best vendors are getting really good at providing
information directly to prospective customers.

I plan to blog on various issues pertaining to the relationship between
vendors and customers, the tech industry at larger, and possibly a few
other items as well. Hope you enjoy.

Computing getting too complicated?

In reply to Walking a fine line

The article today on Is computing getting to complicated made me think about a world where computing – especially corporate computing was simplified. 

Would that mean more vendor offerings or fewer? 

Would simplified standards stimulate more innovation?  Would some
of the resources devoted to current issues be diverted to making better
products or would the resources be devoted to something else? 

Can business continue to produce the kind of productivity gains we have
come to expect without a highly functional and flexible computer
system? 

Would the IT marketplace – both the people managing and supporting
devices and creating systems and software be much smaller?  Would
I have a job? 

The role of analysts?

In reply to Walking a fine line

Ah, the ivory tower!  Bold, visionary predictions broadcast for the world to hear.  More focused, consulting, reports, etc. available for sale.  The TechRepublic community expressed some strong skepticism around the value of these kind of analyst reports.  The consensus of this discussion:  Gartner may or may not be right on this front but they’ve been wrong enough in the past to be very suspicious of future predictions. 

My take, like all thought provoking predictions, it is scandalous enough to provoke interest but general enough in its application that it may be interpreted many, many ways. 

Perhaps something for a different blog

In reply to Walking a fine line

Am I the only one that liked the mystery of Deep Throat? I was
surprised to see how saddened I was to learn Deep Throat’s identity.

Perhaps something for a different blog

In reply to Perhaps something for a different blog

I was far more saddened to see those pre-loaded rightist chambers fired at D.T.  The idea of convicted criminals trying to impune that source is disgusting as the Watergate event itself.  I was in my 20s at the time.

 

Best, G.

The many sides of Microsoft

In reply to Walking a fine line

What is the most visited IT site in the world? By most measures, it is
Microsoft.com and the related sites produced by Microsoft – MSDN,
TechNet, etc.  With the huge marketshare held by Microsoft for
most products it produces, there is a clear need to stay current on
these products and it makes sense that these sites would be heavily
used. 

At the same time, much of the comments by TechRepublic members are very strongly against
Microsoft.  So where are the Microsoft supporters?  Research
we’ve done at TechRepublic has shown that (not surprisingly) there is a
huge Microsoft installed base within TechRepublic’s membership. 
Where are they? 

There are many possible explanations –

1.  It is more popular and fun to be against Microsoft than a
Microsoft supporter.  There may be just as many (possibly more)
strongly in favor of and behind MSFT products etc.  Just like
employees often make fun of their boss or kids make fun of their
parents, students their teachers, etc it is fun to ride those at the
top of whatever food chain you find yourself in. 

2.  While many need to use Microsoft, many of those people would prefer to be using some other technology. 

3.  TechRepublic and the many other forums out there are in aggregate the “anti-MSDN, TechNet, etc.”

4.  There are two very different sides to Microsoft – the side
that produces the technical information and the side that produces the
more polarizing studies and marketing pieces. 

My involvement with TechRepublic’s white paper directory provides me
with a great deal of data to support any and all of the suggestions
above.  We see many white papers, webcasts, etc. that are focused
directly on reasons why businesses should choose Microsoft products
over Linux products (TCO, ease of management, etc.) and they are among
the most popular titles in our directory.  The popularity of the
papers doesn’t mean agreement however, we receive a large number of
e-mails commenting on these papers and rejecting many of these
claims.  While we get a lot of member feedback, this is the only
time that I know of where the members responded directly to the content
of a paper. 

Clearly Microsoft hits some pretty sensitive nerves.  I’ll continue to watch for the the more vocal supporters.  

Apple and Intel?

In reply to Walking a fine line

It is rumored that Apple will announce today a partnership with Intel for chips
starting in 2006. It is easy to read too much into this. Where could this go? Apple’s X OS running
on all Intel machines? Apple servers running on Itanium or Xeon in the future?
A world where Dell could ask you – do you want OS X or Longhorn on your new PC?
Not likely but the possibility intrigues me. Steve Jobs’ history certainly doesn’t suggest that a wide
open new world with Apple is likely. He squashed the Apple clone market as soon
as he got back to Apple in the 90’s. He certainly has had chances to have the
ipod work with other music services and he didn’t do anything there.

Still, if Apple can make PCs more cheaply or if they can make some
inroads to get their market share up above, say, 15% this could make for some
interesting situations in the workplace. At CNET Networks, TechRepublic’s
parent company, we already have a large number of professionals using Apple at
home and requesting support for Apple in the workplace. So far, only select job
functions get that support but the requests continue and I suspect they are
increasing.

When I talk to our support teams, they talk about the
challenges of making Exchange work with Apple devices, trouble rolling out
proprietary software, etc. But with more and more going through a browser even
our support team admit that this is less of an issue than it used to be. Could
potential security gains and user productivity/happiness make this a reality?

I’m excited to see how this plays out.

When a database isn’t just a database – vertical markets

In reply to Walking a fine line

In the past few months, my discussions with tech vendors have focused
increasingly on new vertical market solutions. Many vendors –
including IBM, HP, Oracle, and others are rethinking their product,
sales, marketing, and consulting efforts to better accommodate specific
vertical industries.

This raises some questions:

When is a database not a database? If IBM is marketing the
DB2 database for hospitals, how much of that database is configured
differently? When a committee scoping out a new database solution
in a hospital conducts their research, at what point do they need very
specific vertical industry information about DB2? When do you look for industry specific information rather than more general technical information on a solution?

At what point does industry specific information, product adjustments,
etc. become a requirement for purchase? Certainly, there are
areas where only one industry would require a product and there are
many companies large and small set up to serve those industries.
But, for solutions that currently are used across industries are there
really enough common features within a vertical industry to customize
software or hardware for that specific vertical?

Dan Farber at
ZDNet blogged about two vendors taking very different approaches to this question earlier this year.
Clearly industry customization is important. This isn’t a move
being made by one vendor in isolation. Still I wonder how deep
these “industry solutions” really are. It seems to me that the
differences from one shop to the next go way beyond the vertical
industry. Operating systems, hardware infrastructure, development
platform for custom applications, their dependence or independence on
web based applications, their policies and procedures surrounding a
whole host of issues…. Is this simply a way to channel potential
customers to highly trained sales and reseller channels versed in the
language of your particular business or does this increased focus
signal a much more fractured and specialized marketplace of the
future?

When a database isn

In reply to When a database isn’t just a database – vertical markets

Perosnally, I’m surprised by this emphasis, particularly when the
industry at large (*cough* IBM *cough*) is making noises about become
more servcie oriented and less product oriented. I’d think the smarter
move in vertical spaces is to simply say “don’t worry about the
database, we can tune it however you want it” and then sell an
integration/customization service plan.

Maybe I’m overestimating how comfortable the average buyer is
negotiating an SLA, but if I were Big Blue or any other major
software  heavyweight, I’d pretty much give the software away as a
loss leader for the service plan. Heck, that’s what makes Linux so
compelling as a software package for guys like Novell. Why compete on
price when you can compete on quality?

John Cleese dissing tape backup? Wha?

In reply to Walking a fine line

Check out this very funny area on LiveVault’s site.
Have no idea how much they paid John Cleese (and Michael Dorn of Star
Trex Next Gen fame) to do this or how much it cost to produce but it
wasn’t cheap. I found it very well done and entertaining. But I’m not
buying a backup solution in the near future so I wonder how effective
LiveVault is finding this project from a marketing perspective. The person that
watches the entire video DOES get a pretty good sense of LiveVault’s
value proposition and I have passed this link to at least 25 people
prior to this post…

On another note, I keep feeling like I should be getting tired of John Cleese’s schtick but I’m not.

Must rent _A fish called Wanda_ tonight…

Happy viewing!

John Cleese dissing tape backup? Wha?

In reply to John Cleese dissing tape backup? Wha?

I came across LiveVault as I was researching solutions for our backup
needs (2 office locations, 7 employees, financial industry). I also saw
the John Cleese video. I was thinking the same thing, wondering about
its marketing effectiveness.

Is it worth it? I don’t know, but it sure was funny! (By the way, we didn’t go with LiveVault)

Hardware/software support

In reply to Walking a fine line

Software breaks. It’s a fact of life. If it didn’t, there
wouldn’t be a site called TechRepublic and most of TR’s members would
be working in other lines of work. Because the software
breaks, everyone in IT must think about and work with vendor
support teams. Today I found a ZDNet Blog with the following quote:

“I have a friend that works at Dell in support who told
me of the thousands of calls they took on Linux last year – only 12
needed to be escalated to level 3.” Level 3 calls were calls the required the assistance of the software provider.

Given the large amount of time that is devoted to
the support of
business software and the large market share position of Dell holds in
the server space, this seems really exceptional. I would expect
Dell (or Redhat) to make a lot of noise about this. In general, I see
very little discussion about support on any of the vendor’s websites that are available to the general public (as opposed to
special areas devoted to existing customers.)  If there is a mention of support
it is always full of marketing speak – “and of course this is backed by our
crack support team…” 

Our company’s IT team have been feverishly working to make sure that the
entire company has the new Windows patches installed after Microsoft released
some pretty disturbing alerts this week on some potentially serious holes found
in Windows. Major security issues get mentioned but what about the more mundane
but important support issues every business faces?   I find lots of discussions
about Microsoft Windows and Microsoft support.  I don’t see the same kind of
discussions for other applications – databases, systems management tools, etc. 

Obviously software support is a major issue in any business.  But how do you
evaluate support before you purchase?  And, who do you evaluate, the hardware or
software vendor?  Or both? 

Selling high end servers/services by phone

In reply to Walking a fine line

I received a call today from a major (albeit unnamed) software
vendor. Actually, I’m quite sure I received a call from an
outsourced telemarketing firm representing a major software
vendor. At any rate, I get these calls rather frequently and I’ve
noticed such a big difference in the quality of interactions from one
vendor to another. This vendor was among the worst. The guy
on the other end of the phone clearly had a script and, from the sound
of it, was reading said script for the first time.

I realize that telesales staff work is hard to fill and you don’t want
your best salespeople doing pre-sales qualification. That said,
it seems like it might be worth some real effort to make this contact
with a prospective customer more educated about the market and the
product. At the very least, have some interesting pieces of
information you can give TO me as you ask all sorts of questions OF
me.

What propelled me to blog about this is that I just received just such
a call from another vendor in the same space. We had a nice
conversation and she gave me 4 to 5 items to consider as I do more
research. At the end of the call, I asked her what her background
was – “oh, I’m just college student but they made me take 2 weeks of
paid training before they let me loose on the phones.” Money well
spent.

Selling high end servers/services by phone

In reply to Selling high end servers/services by phone

I agree 100% — when will these companies ever learn?    You would think that if they were tracking the ROI here, the powers that be at these places would get the point and make some changes that would result in mutually beneficial and rewarding outcomes for BOTH parties — that’s not rocket science.

Keep it up — maybe one of their leaders will see these messages

 

 

Recycling PCs

In reply to Walking a fine line

Lenovo announced yesterday a rebate program on Canadian laptops and monitors.
I hadn’t realized until reading this story how far ahead of the United
States some Canadian provinces are in this important area. While IBM
offers rebates for recycling and others offer services that will take
and recycle systems without a rebate I feel it is time for the United
States at the federal level or individual states to either offer
legislation requiring or tax incentives to recycle PC, Laptops,
monitors, etc.

There are also services, like Retire IT that will do this for your company for a fee.

In addition to the environmental necessities of proper disposal, there
are many charitable organizations that will take old equipment,
refurbish it, and give the systems to underprivileged communities all
over the world. Again, it would appear that other areas of the world are ahead of the US (or at least
better at optimizing their web sites for search.) 

I’d love to hear from
the TechRepublic community about how their company deals with decommissioned
PCs.  Are there services your company use for recycling old equipment?  Are you
aware of charities that a company can utilize to make the most of their old
equipment?  Are there other vendors leading the way in this area? 

Recycling PCs

In reply to Recycling PCs

I have dealt with this issue at more than one job now.  The
biggest problem I run into is no-one wants to pay to recycle, and most
pc recycling has a fee.  Most schools and local charities are
already overwhelmed with old pc’s and monitors.  I have managers
that tell me to pitch the equipment and monitors in the trash and
forget about it….nice.  In Sacramento I was able to
find a couple organizations that offer recycling services locally and
took my old equipment for free.  I would like to see programs
working with landfills or waste-management to offer this type of
service.

Recycling PCs

In reply to Recycling PCs

(Warning the following is counter to popular belief systems [religions?] regarding recycling)

Why recycle?  We are not running out of raw materials otherwise
companies would pay people for their old computers.  To recycle
old computers only pollutes the environment because of the energy
expenditures to process them.  As for “dangerous chemicals”
potentially leeching into the ground from computers and monitors is
actually highly unlikely especially when one considers the technology
used in modern landfills to prevent such occurances.

Recycling PCs

In reply to Recycling PCs

I am a volunteer tech at Computers4kids Saskatoon Sask. Canada. We except used computers from individuals and companies. We fix them up and install Win 98 on them. We sell to people who’s kidsneed them for school or post secondary students for a very small fee( we are not allowed to give them away). The only qualification is that they are below the poverty line. We were able to recycle the junked parts,cases, mobos and cards. There is another organization in town that does the same as us . It saves alot of older but still usable equipment goin to the dump.

Recycling PCs

In reply to Recycling PCs

Why recycle? I will not pretend to have any expertise in the area
of the environmental sciences but I have read reports detailing how
pcs, batteries, CRT and Flat panel montitors contain (collectively)
mercury, lead, chromium, cadmium and other chemicals that can and do
leech into the groundwater tables. If I’m reading the wrong
reports and getting only half of the picture please share.

The other reason for recycling, as bewolfe points out, is that there
are a number of people that cannot afford computers and will need to
know how to use them to really participate in many parts of the
workforce, school systems, economy, etc.

I will agree that this recycling instead of disposal is expensive and
time intensive. Vendors offering rebates, governments offering
corporate tax breaks, etc. certainly would lessen this cost and allow
businesses to make their decisions on what to do their old systems on a
level financial playing field.

Recycling PCs

In reply to Recycling PCs

senior’s centers, community center’s in low income areas both usually have programs where
and old computer equipment that is donated is tuned up and made available either free or for a nominal amount.
( 411 society, here in vancouver asks about 20 bucks for a 486. they are a seniors home and community center. )

if people aren’t offering this type of service in the usa, then it
shows a serious lack in respect, for the environment as well as those
who have a fixed / limited income.
( working part time for minimum wage is no more money than welfare,
even though you are gainfully employed, so how can you afford to buy
the newest toys. )

Recycling PCs

In reply to Recycling PCs

There is a company here in Tucson, Az.called World Care that takes old donated computer equipment, and refurbishes them the best that they can and gived those computers to schools here in the Tucson area. They do this for free,  maybe there are such organizations in other parts of the U.S. World Care also sells computers to the public.

Recycling PCs

In reply to Recycling PCs

There are companies in the third world that deal in that.

you could get in touch with one of them on:

gigatrendsug@yahoo.com

Tallie

Recycling PCs

In reply to Recycling PCs

I have been researching recycling for many years and have done some, not just with pc’s. What I have found so far, is that most of the problem is in the CRT recovery area. There is a company in upper New York if I recall correctly that sells a machine that processes the CRT only. You simplely put the CRT on the conyvor belt and it crushes the CRT and seperates the metal from glass. Alright, the problem here is that the metal can be gotten sold quickly, but the glass, here lyes the problem there has to be a market for it to be a profitible thing for the recycler. So, you see, there’s all this glass lying around and lying around you get the picture. O’by the way if I recall the price for the CRT recovery machine is in the $10,000.00 range(if I recall correctly). Most metal from an old pc can be moved very fast, it is the other parts of it that seem to be the hasle. Internal auctions for companies, I have see this happen for older pc stuff. I could go on and on about this recycle stuff, but it is really a matter of how committed you want to be and how creative. Sorry for the misspelled words.

 

Standards – at any level!

In reply to Walking a fine line

I love a good glass of wine and have become known as a person that will
readily offer a recommendation for any occasion. I hear
the following – “Wine just scares me, there is so much to learn before
you can even order!” In many respects they are right. To
easily navigate a wine store or a wine list, you do need to have a
pretty firm grasp on all sorts of terms, geographical areas, etc.
Entire books are available on the subject.

Recently, some wine vendors have done something to buck the trend and I
love it. They’ve decided to market their wines without all of the
winespeak. The market is rewarding them with huge sales.
The basic feedback is this – the winemaker made it easy for me to fine
what I was looking for so I bought it.

I think tech vendors could learn a thing or two from these wine makers.

The tech industry has a long history of battles over standards – punch
cards for early computers, betamax vs. VHS, mac vs. IBM compatible, etc. Sometimes the customer wins. Often, the
companies buying these products are left to fend for themselves.
Given this history, I don’t think it should be surprising that we are
at a point where even the basic language vendors use to describe their
products are divergent. This falls into two categories –

1. Vendors using the same word/phrase to describe different technologies: Grid
computing anyone? Do you mean a bunch of small servers clustered
together in one location or do you mean a grid of independent computers
across the country or globe all sharing the computing work for a
specific application? What does vendor X mean when they talk
about Service Oriented Architecture?

2. Vendors using different words/phrases to describe the same thing: On-demand
computing or Adaptive Architecture? Both IBM and HP would discuss
the various differences in their strategies and you could argue that
companies need to develop language specific to their solution in order
to really “own” the discussion.

Perhaps this is why some of the most popular white papers in
TechRepublic’s white paper directory are focused squarely on helping
professionals simply understand the terminology surrounding a
solution. Many of these papers could be titled – “What we mean
when we say SOA/Grid/web services/etc.”

Of course, even the most clear speaking wine vendors need to have a
good product to back up the labling (some do and some really don’t) and
the same is true in technology.  

PC Recycling Part 2

In reply to Walking a fine line

Here I go again, more about recycled PCs. I wrote my last blog
entry as a simple reaction to a news story I’d read last week.
That article and the responses from TR Members to the blog post
prompted additional research.

I. If you want to take the effort to recycle your PC, it can likely be done in the US. Dell,
HP, IBM/Lenovo, Gateway, and other vendors have recycling
programs. Many have incentives attached so if your company is
happy with its PC Platform you can likely get a discount on future
purchases – here are links:

Dell

HP

IBM

Gateway

2. If you don’t want to recycle your systems with a
vendor, there are likely local/national organizations you can
utilize.
There are a number of options outlined here at this pretty interesting site run by eBay. If people find other local non-vendor options aggregated please share them!

PC Recycling Part 2

In reply to PC Recycling Part 2

And don’t forget the CNET Tradeup
program.  Not strictly recycling, as the product you trade in may
in fact get refurbished and sold to somebody else.  But that’s
even better than recycling, finding a new lease on life for a used
system.

Can’t get fired buying…

In reply to Walking a fine line

For a long time, people would claim that IT pros wouldn’t get fired for buying IBM.  While that might still be true in some companies it is far less true today than it was 20 years ago.  More often now I hear accounts that essentially cite Microsoft as the current equivalent to the IBM of the past.  Behind the statement is the understanding that a vendor may not always have the best solution but your job security is much higher when the powers that be upstairs understand the decision.  People will hold you less responsible for the failures that may be ahead when implementing the market leading solution. 

Companies spend millions of dollars annually in support of their brands and the larger the company the more they derive benefit from their market stature.  Still, every year many new and interesting start-ups hit the market with new solutions.  Other companies are growing rapidly despite being outside of the top 4 in market share.   I hear members talk about these smaller companies more frequently and see these getting strong traction with the members of TechRepublic.  Sometimes it is because the less well known company provides a solution at a lower cost and sometimes it is because the solution offered is their speciality whereas a larger vendor may not have devoted the same kind of attention to their solution. 

A great example of this is in the area of Security.  Information security is a top concern for all companies.  Not only are there an increasing number of threats to productivity but legislation has mandated that organizations protect and control their data and the access to that data.  So, what companies are helping members get their arms around these issues? 

According to our BT Trax tool – an tool used to analyze what vendor content is being read, what technology is being discussed, and what vendors produce the content – it isn’t the market share leaders like Symantec, MacAfee, and Trend Micro.  Instead it is vendors like Sophos, Webroot, CipherTrust, etc. 

Why? Let me take a stab at the answer.  First, the topics receiving attention are those topics that organizations don’t have control of yet – spyware, spam (maybe,) compliance issues around identity management and messaging, etc.  Second, these less well know vendors are providing much more content on the most recent threats effecting the marketplace than their larger competitors  Thirdly, the security market is one where many vendors are intentionally looking to work with multiple vendors.  Working with multiple vendors securing your data/network provides a business with insight and innovation from multiple R&D teams and potentially provides a stronger solution than one vendor. 

We’re seeing some of the larger vendors start to address these newer threats – CA recently bought PestPatrol to compliment their eTrust Security suite, Trend Micro is starting to put some real energy around the topic of Spyware as well.  It will be interesting to watch how dynamics change as the larger vendors enter the fray.  

Stay tuned.   

Can’t get fired buying…

In reply to Can’t get fired buying…

I think another part of the reason smaller vendors are finding traction
is that a lot of folks are fed up with the failures of Microsoft in
this arena.  It’s not totally fair of course, as the dominant
market leader it’s only natural their software would be the one most
targetted by the virus writers and scammers of the world.

So what I think happens is a lot of IT folks see how this huge company
has been singularly unable to contain the security issues and it makes
you think about whether a big vendor is the answer at all.  That
perhaps lets these smaller players grab some of the mind-share, it
makes IT departments more willing to at least consider those solutions.

London bombings

In reply to Walking a fine line

I was on vacation last week and was by and large taking a vacation from
the internet and e-mail, including this blog.  Like a great many
others, my first instince is to blog about the bombings in
London.  I will spare you most of those thoughts.  I live
just outside of New York City and commute on a train into the city most
days.  My return to work yesterday produced the following:

1.  Walked to my train
2.  Saw a national guardsman in full body armor with a HUGE machine gun on my train car. 
3.  Relief. 
4.  Tremendous sadness both at my relief and the events that caused me to feel this way. 

Data Data everywhere

In reply to Walking a fine line

I was listening to a radio report on the tremendous network of surveillance cameras in London. If these cameras play a large role in the capture of the culprits (and even if they don’t) I think this will be the beginning of a whole new wave spending from major cities that do not have the same kind of network. London’s network sounds like it still uses analog tapes. I suspect the market for digital surveillance systems and perhaps software that can isolate suspicious activity and bring it to the attention of trained humans will not be far behind (if it is out there already, please let me know.) The implications of any move in this direction are tremendous – balancing privacy with public safety, determining fair use for this information, policies for archiving and/or disposal of this data, etc.

In November 2004, the Harvard Business Review ran an interview with a director and the US Government General Accounting Office that discussed the importance of private businesses role in “homeland security.” 85% of the United States’ “critical infrastructure” is privately owned. I wonder how and if non-government IT will play a larger role in this effort. I’m interested to see how the events in London raise the level of discussion around these issues. 

The great divide between customer service and product innovation

In reply to Walking a fine line

I just wanted to shine whatever light this blog might have on a fantastic blog post on ZDNet.
In the blog, Paul Murphy details his frustrations with Sun’s customer
service and contrasts this with the passion and enthusiasm of Sun’s
R&D group. No matter how great the products (and I’d be
interested to get a sense from Paul on what he thought of Solaris 10
once he ultimately received the information he requested)bad customer support will quickly diminish any benefits that might come from a well engineered product.

The push and pull of new technologies

In reply to Walking a fine line

A trend emerged while examining the most popular white papers for the previous month. By far, the most popular topics were the following:

1. Voice over IP
2. Wireless Networking

This data compliments our IT Priorities research which consistently shows that the largest number of member priorities are also focused on these topics. If you spend much time in TechRepublic’s discussion areas, you will see that these topics don’t share the same level of activity. Why?

If I may hazard an undocumented guess – the third most popular topic in the white paper directory – Security.

Gartner predicts that by 2008 only 8.2% of corporate telephone systems will be traditional PBX. Similar predictions of dominance are tied to the wireless networking marketplace. The data from TechRepublic’s white paper directory and CNET Networks’ IT Priorities studies suggest the same. The discussion groups suggest there are still a great many companies that aren’t convinced the technology is ready for their business… yet.

Vendors positioned well for both VoIP and Wireless LANs are in for huge growth. However, the best way to get that growth started is not to push the technology but pull potential customers into discussions that minimize their concerns. IT pros don’t lack interest in these topics, they lack a sense of security.

Check it out – UPS upgrades their wireless tracking system

In reply to Walking a fine line

MIT Technology Review’s July issue had an interesting article about UPS’ $120 Million wireless system upgrade.  Essentially, UPS tapped Symbol Technology to design a handheld device that connected to a belt mounted 802.11b transmitter (pictured here.)  You can read what UPS had to say about this here.

I found this article and the technology they described really cool.  I’m hoping to blog more frequently about these new, interesting, or unusual tech innovations and tag them all with the tag “Check it out.”  If you share my interest in these topics click on the tag to see others.  If you have items you’d like to share with the community, please feel free to tag those items with the “check it out” tag as well. 

Check it out – UPS upgrades their wireless tracking system

In reply to Check it out – UPS upgrades their wireless tracking system

I and another co-worker worked at UPS when they first started working
on this. Some of the early development was done at their national air
sorting facility in Louisville, KY. Of course, little of it was
wireless back then, but it was a lot of fun to work on.

Vista here we come!

In reply to Walking a fine line

I’ve long believed that bad, and I mean really bad, advertising
works. It must or how else can you explain Carrot Top pitching for
1-800-Collect for so long? Or most commercials on the radio? Perhaps
the studies that justify those marketing moves were used to justify the
official name for Longhorn – Vista.

Microsoft announced
the official name yesterday and boy would I have loved to be a fly on
the wall during the naming process. Was it heated? What were the other
options? How many people were involved? What role did Gates and Ballmer
play?

My first thought was security holes. To use in a sentence, “through
the vista the hacker could view my computer and all the personal
information stored within it.” I then started thinking conspiracy
theories, is this subliminally supposed to make us think of open
systems and somehow neutralize some of the momentum of Linux? Not
likely. I miss the numbers I think – “windows 2006ish” would have been
good. Vista, Tiger, Solaris, Windows 95, OS 2, Irix, … Let’s call the
whole thing off.

Product naming is supposed to generate an emotional response to a
product. Would a Mustang be the same with any other name? All the good
names feel like they’ve been taken. I’m happy Microsoft didn’t make up
a word. I’ve always wondered about names like Accenture, Integra,
Phaeton, etc. Bottom line: everyone works to create positive
associations: Speed, Power, Beauty. No one calls their product
crapola… While they work to create positive associations few seem to
do a good job of making those associations stick. I will say that
Accenture is certainly better than Andersen Consulting…

I’m sure there were thousands of dollars in consultant fees around
this whole naming event. In the end, it feels like a non-event to me
although I’m sure this is a huge story. Vista or Windows 2006 is news
because Microsoft made it and most of us will ultimately use it. Cross
this off the list of things to be done before launch – naming, beta,
larger beta, pre-launch, launch.

Actually, I liked “Longhorn” better. Ultimately, the announcement
will be in every major tech and general news outlet, 1000s of people
like me will blog on it, and Microsoft will generate tons of awareness
with business and personal buyers.

The best case study – your own company

In reply to Walking a fine line

Oracle’s absorption of Peoplesoft has done wonders for their image.  While I’m sure there are still issues (when aren’t there issues at a corporation) it appears as if the integration of the Peoplesoft business into the Oracle product, sales, and corporate infrastructure is complete.  For a company like Oracle that is working hard to become a bigger player in the business applications side of the business, the apparent ease (and I’m sure it was anything but easy) of this acquisition is a powerful case study. 

To read more about this and other issues surrounding Oracle, read the News.com interview with Charles Phillips, Oracle’s Co-President. 

Totally off topic but…

In reply to Walking a fine line

Check out the copy of the “Simpsons” house a friend shared with me today. Too cool.

Click here for more pictures. 

Totally off topic but…

In reply to Totally off topic but…

I never realized how 50s the house looked until I saw it in real size.  I gues that’s when Matt Groening was a kid.

Check this out – solar cells on a laptop bag

In reply to Walking a fine line

I’m on the road a lot and battery management is always an issue –
laptop, cell phone, mp3, etc. etc. etc. Well, the future is here – solar collectors on your laptop bag.
This is the Voltaic Messenger. This isn’t an endorsement, I don’t have
the bag… yet. But it is pretty cool. Strangely, it doesn’t charge
laptops and I would wait for them to figure this out before purchasing.
I’m also concerned that I’d need a number of other power cords to
function. Already too many of them in my life. Still, pretty cool.

I’ve
tagged this with the tag “Check it out” and encourage others to do the
same when they blog about something cool. A few people have started to
do this and I invite you to click on the tag for this post and check
out what others are finding cool.

Check this out – solar cells on a laptop bag

In reply to Check this out – solar cells on a laptop bag

Same problems here. Every morning, have to check my phone, MP3 player, PC… Because I forgot to do that the night before… When I’m on train I sometimes take some power from PC to give it to the MP3, but… can’t use the PC too long, etc. So hope this will come to France soon. I’m managing the blogzone on ZDNet.fr : hope you will come come & visit it, if you’re not afraid by the French 😉

Latptops going the way of the dinosaur?

In reply to Walking a fine line

ZDNet has an article discussing
the potential shift away from laptops to the Desktop/Smartphone combo.
The article cites this as a potential solution for executives that
typically use e-mail, web, and MS Office almost exclusively. As a
recent convert to the Treo 650, I have to say I think that the day is
not far away but I’d handicap the point where this is a common
configuration for businesses at 5 – 7 years.

I’m amazed by how rapidly Blackberry, Pocket PC, and Treo adoption
is occurring. When I walk to my seat on a plane, nearly every person
not looking like a person on vacation is cranking away on their device.
On my train, I get about one question a week about my Treo and how I
like it. Everyone is “just about to buy one and anxious to buy the
right one.” This comment usually enlists a blackberry user to join the
conversation and offer their viewpoint as well. On the Long Island
Railroad this is significant. Usually, the only time someone talks to
you is when they target you for verbal abuse.

Clearly the combination device is one its way to mainstream use. But
will it be a Smartphone or a laptop with VoIP? If e-mail is your
primary application, then you are ready for the desktop/smartphone
combo today. But if you’re like me and need to spend time with huge
spreadsheets, use web based corporate applications behind firewalls
that aren’t optimized for these devices, and generally use the internet
for your job in a regular way, I have to wonder about the viability of
a laptop-killing handheld device anytime soon. Perhaps the future is
more like this – a very small bluetooth enabled device that can easily
connect to your ultra-light laptop and a duplicate image stored on a
corporate server.

Latptops going the way of the dinosaur?

In reply to Latptops going the way of the dinosaur?

ZDNet’s got this one just plain wrong.  Laptop sales are through the roof and while road warriors might be happy with balckberry/smartphone devices, they just don’t fit the bill for day-to-day communication and telecommuting.  The desktop might be going the way of the dinosaur, but we’re going to have some form of laptop/slate device for years to come.  Remember, PDAs were supposed to kill off laptops too.

Latptops going the way of the dinosaur?

In reply to Latptops going the way of the dinosaur?

Wait a minute!

Wasn’t the debate last year about how desktops were doomed to be replaced by laptops?

I don’t see my desktop, laptop, or cell phone replaced by either-or anytime soon.

Latptops going the way of the dinosaur?

In reply to Latptops going the way of the dinosaur?

I don’t think so! At least in my industry (healthcare IT) so much of the work is project based and in a given week I’m likely to find the need to do major work in at least a half dozen different locations. My desk seems to be a place to rest between meetings. My laptop isn’t going away anytime soon.

Latptops going the way of the dinosaur?

In reply to Latptops going the way of the dinosaur?

Not for my field either.  I am a Control Systems Engineer and double as our Systems Administrator and have to interface to many different products to configure them or program them.  I would dearly love to have a device that could be all of the things that I need that is the size of a Blackberry, but until they make something that could connect to devices and handle all of the other stuff (email, spreadsheets, documents, etc) I won’t give up my laptops.  Besides, what would I play Quake on?  LOL…

Scared to write that $1,000,000 check?

In reply to Walking a fine line

There are few items more expensive for a company than a new
enterprise application (CRM, ERP, SCM, or other acronym.) Of course the
creators of that software want to help you sign that big check. But all
too often they try to encourage you with promises that seem really hard
to keep or with a kind of “plug and play” pitch that is just not
believable for most complex businesses.

Kristen Zhivago is a consultant that specializes in technology marketing. Her latest blog post
focuses on the experiences that have lead to some real resistance from
businesses. She refers to the skepticism of software buyers as a
“swamp” and she offers some really useful advice to marketers trying to
sell to businesses – make their product offerings easy to understand.

Watching
TechRepublic and its sister sites ZDNet and News.com offers additional
evidence of how correct Zhivago is in her assessment. The top white
paper titles on enterprise applications for June:

1. Change Management: The Other Half of the Story
2. Sustainable IT Compliance
3. Customer-Centric CRM: Fully Optimized CRM Performance

In fact, all of the papers in the top 10 (listed here)
were focused on the side of the story that doesn’t contain the bold
promises.  They focus on the the issues that make the software
really work or explain how their technology (64-bit optimized programs)
will create real performance gains.  Given the information choices
available to customers now I think that the software vendors leaning
into this sales and marketing approach will experience success that
will force others in the market to follow suit.

Scared to write that $1,000,000 check?

In reply to Scared to write that $1,000,000 check?

Two things they can do before writing check:

1:  demand vendor has same software available as hosted service and try it out.  Pay a monthly per-user fee (typically several hundred dollars) for a small group of users.  While this approach still requires loading inventory and process tables, they wouldn’t be out the massive $ if features didn’t work as promised like in recent jd edwards lawsuit

2: in contract have payments hinged to performance, i.e. system is working as advertised. 

The marketers love affair with Linux users

In reply to Walking a fine line

News.com is reporting on the broadening of the LinuxWorld show.  The reason?  The perception that companies using linux are more likely to adopt other “new” ideas.  With many vendors exhibiting products and making announcements at the show, News.com notes that this isn’t only about the OS but about corporate computing in general.  The marketers logic seems clear – “people at the show made the choice to adopt Linux, they are more likely to become an early customer of my solution.”  These people are the all important early adopters that can give a smaller technology company the reference accounts they need to really grow their business with more risk-adverse companies.  For larger companies, this becomes another opportunity to leverage their linux story into significant new initiatives – IBM’s commitment to Linux as a platform to run everything from their Mainframe to their entry level Xeon blade server presents clear opportunity that justifies their investment in Linus support and marketing. 

Certainly, the 11,000 people at the show  are involved in working with more than just the OS.  These are people that are using Linux to run very mainstream business applications, develop new applications, etc.  But marketers must not mistake LinuxWorld or the people LinuxWorld promises to deliver (whether they are at the show or not) as carbon copies of the professionals attending a Microsoft show, or a UNIX show in the past (anyone remember the booming Unix shows of the mid-90’s?).  The businesses using Linux do many of the same things that a business running Windows Server are doing but they are empowered in a way that a Microsoft customer is not – they always have the the ability to shape the path of the the OS. 

The vendor’s must be care to make their pitch knowing that their customers will expect more control than customers of the past. 

Linux taking over super computing

In reply to Walking a fine line

I love the web.  I started reading an article about Japan’s plans to build a new supercomputer and suddenly found myself looking at this graph detailing the OS run on the worlds fastest computers since 1993. 

Source http://www.top500.org

 

Check it out – pictures of the world’s fastest computer

In reply to Walking a fine line

IBM has a bunch of photos of “Blue Gene” their latest/fastest supercomputer.

(Photo provided with permission from IBM)

Now that’s a computer room! For more on Blue Gene you can
visit IBM’s site or the DOE site that describes the architecture in
some detail. IBM is offering the Blue Gene solution
commercially. This one cost $100 Million.

Check it out – pictures of the world’s fastest computer

In reply to Check it out – pictures of the world’s fastest computer

I don’t like the slanted cabinet. I’d still like to be the lead system administrator for it.  🙂

I should have waited…

In reply to Walking a fine line

A while back, I bought a Treo 650 from PalmOne. I’m generally
happy with it. At least I was until I saw the sneak preview of the
Motorola Q on our TechRepublic’s sister site cnet.com.

I
hate this feeling. You buy a computer, and then something cool comes
out 3 months later. You finally break down and get a smart phone and
something really cool comes along.

Actually, it looks cool but
I’m not sure if I’d buy it over the Treo – I’ve heard mixed reviews
about Microsoft’s smart phone OS… Motorola is doing a great job of
sprucing up its product line and bringing back the cool.

I should have waited…

In reply to I should have waited…

Well even Palm is moving to the WIndows Mobile OS so you won’t be able to escape it:

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000183054055/

Might as well just accept that Windows is going to win the mobile war.

A plug for Make Magazine

In reply to Walking a fine line

Recently got turned on to Make Magazine and Phillip Torrone’s blog found on Make’s site.

Great stuff.

Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil…?

In reply to Walking a fine line

Photo from News.com on the Linux/Windows interoperability labs….

Check out the lab story here

Just when you thought it was safe to go on the internet again…

In reply to Walking a fine line

Another widespread virus hits. The morning news was full of stories about how major organizations (I heard but cannot cite a story about ABC Nightly News producers losing computers and writing copy for the show on typewriters.) Update: story I link to has been updated to include a list of some of the businesses affected. 

Not that long ago, I was at a TechRepublic live event where the 45 members in the room talked about how they felt pretty confident about their ability to withstand virus attacks (the big concern at that time was Spyware.) Well it seems as if the message is clear – pretty well prepared never means invulnerable.

What gets me is the general fascination that the world has with the virus creators, hackers, etc. They seem to be the new cat burglars – really smart criminals that somehow make criminality OK because… well, they’re really smart! If people walked into the ABC Newsroom and destroyed all of the computers that were actually affected with the virus with a baseball bat instead of developing a virus the reaction would be very different! “Brutal thugs! Hardened criminals!”

While I’m fascinated by people who would spend time and energy developing code that behaves like a cancer across indiscriminate systems I do not respect them or hold them in high regard. They are doing nothing different than the thug that walks into an office and destroys property.

Reactions to the worms

In reply to Walking a fine line

Perhaps the people working at companies that were hit by the RBOT and Zotob were too busy to discuss the issue but the primary reaction I’ve seen around TechRepublic can be summed up this way – “I was covered by End of Day Monday.” In fact, people seemed to fall into two camps, those that received word on Monday and were protected and those that were mad that the major media outlets were the ones to “break” the story. Perhaps they broke the story  because the worms broke so many of their systems. Or perhaps they just neglected to cover the three security bulletins earlier in the week.

This worm would have been much more harmful if there hadn’t been so many companies making the move to XP recently. We’ve seen a very large increase in consumption of articles, job aids, and white papers on the topic of migration/deployment of XP in recent months. Also interesting are the few companies thanking their maker for staying with NT!

Never the less, it is clear that many, many companies were affected. The big issue here seems to be patch management. Many patches require significant testing before deploying or significant internal systems can break. Others just aren’t doing it or aren’t doing it on a regular basis. 

Once again, these security threats are minor issues until they aren’t. Thankfully, these worms seem to cause no long term damage to data and the patches are there are ready. Many are discussing the notion that this is the start of a worm war where many are jockeying with each other to write the most effective worm. How long until even the most proactive companies are caught without a patch?

Reactions to the worms

In reply to Reactions to the worms

Another factor in reducing the impact of the latest attack: more
Firefox users, more Thunderbird users, more Zonealarm users, more ISPs
with the most elemental of worm detection schemes.

If M$ wasn’t so busy trying to push their own version of COBRA off on
everyone, this kind of stuff might not have happened. They rammed
Activex into every facet of the system, and now there are still
apparently aspects they didn’t debug. You can gripe all you want to
about blaming the criminal, not the lock, but who forced everyone to
use bad locks? How many “Designed for Micorosft Windows” stickers are
becoming brutally ironic now?

And in their zeal to keep getting people locked-in to their marketing,
M$ even forces you to use the Update Service to check for and apply the
patch. This is like being forced to call the phone company to tell them
your phone isn’t working.

The fact this bug is fixed in XP and not in 2K is NOT a feather in M$
cap, since the last 2K service pack arrived after XP. It’s
near-criminal negligence, considering the impact of this last attack.

Check it out – your personal helicopter and other items

In reply to Walking a fine line

Found a site that is pretty fun called “The Red Ferret Journal.”
Essentially, the site profiles a bunch of interesting and cool items
you’re likely not to know about like the personal helicopter

It’s now TR Linked.

Austrailian companies selling Linux charged for trademark?

In reply to Walking a fine line

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting (registration required) that companies using the term Linux for commercial use will have to now pay for that right.  This is interesting, you can use the OS for free but you need to pay for the trademark.  The fee is relatively small ($A200 to $A5500 says the paper) and endorsed by Linus Torvalds.  If proven true (I can’t say that I’ve know anything about the Sydney Morning Herald but it sure looks like they’ve crossed their t’s and dotted their i’s) then I would imagine that this would soon be enforced in other areas of the world as well.  I can’t imagine this presenting much of a barrier of entry for most companies.  The paper cites Jon “Maddog” Hall, the executive director of Linux International in the United States, as confirming the move and pointing to the protection of the Linux name as the reason for the move. 

Despite the small monetary amount, this feels like a major inflection point for Linux.  Am I alone in thinking this? 

On a side note, I just love RSS – one of my feeds picked this up and I’ve yet to find it anywhere else.  I’m still waiting the day when there truly is too much information.

 

Doh! Remember to check your work!

In reply to Walking a fine line

It seems one or more of the worms released this week to exploit holes in unpatched windows 2000 systems had errors. 

There’s just no excuse for bad coding….

The paperless office…

In reply to Walking a fine line

I was on TechRepublic’s sister site, ZDNet, yesterday when I ran
across a link to this story from ZDNet Asia:  S’pore insurer to
save millions by going paperless. 
If I had $20 for every time I’ve had discussions with people about
creating a paperless office.  While in grad school, I worked in
the engineering department of a public TV station  (I pushed
play, rewound tapes and had lots of conversations about the tragedy
of the VHS vs. Beta war) that was, supposedly, a paperless
office.  My boss at the time was very proud of our paperless
process.  Because we were a public TV station, we were always
giving tours to potential donors, schools, etc. and my boss would
always take tours into the engineering department and talk about our
paperless status while leaning on the typewriter that I had to use to
create my end of shift report that we would send to the FCC. 

Ever since then I’ve been keenly aware of businesses desire to be paperless. 

Back then (this is now over 10 years ago) my boss was very enamored by
how cutting edge a paperless office would be.  At that time,
storage was very expensive, e-mail was just becoming something that was
offered to everyone (instead of being a request by some for access,)
and scanners were available but not very good. 

The world has changed a great deal – grandparents are using e-mail,
storage providers have created cheaper, smaller, and higher capacity
storage devices, and software companies have vastly improved businesses
ability to locate, access, and manipulate stored data. 

Yet this story is still news and my desk is far from paperless…

The paperless office…

In reply to The paperless office…

I am working on a project team that has a goal of being paperless. We have enough common sense to know that the outside world still uses paper, so we wouldn’t foolish enough to envisage running a truly paperless service. However, what we do with that paper is the key. Paper will not be stored in our area. We are simply going to scan all paper received and store it electronically. In most cases, we will never need to view that piece of paper again. It seems, more often than not, that keeping hard copies of documents is “just in case”. If you have the systems in place to ensure this is done in a effective and efficient way, then you are half way there.

The paperless office…

In reply to The paperless office…

You’re absolutely correct, it isn’t my office that is the issue. 
Another member wrote me directly about a rather prominent government
institution that prides themsleves on being paperless but requires
employees to:

1.  Input data into a .pdf
2.  Print out the .pdf and sign it
3.  Scan it back into the system
4.  File a copy of the scanned .pdf on their system for their records

Market share reports

In reply to Walking a fine line

So IBM is now top of the heap in Unix Server Market Share. 
But Sun is saying that Gartner and IDC aren’t tracking the market
correctly.  Volume of shipments or revenue?  Sun moves from
#1 to #3 (behind IBM and HP) in this space.  They obviously aren’t
happy.  IBM clearly loves to be #1 in this market as well as most
of the other server markets that they dominate.  But at the same
time, Sun now enters the x86 market.  IBM is selling large servers
that used to run OS390 with either Linux or AIX.  What is a UNIX
server anymore anyway? 

As someone who has followed, and at some points in my career, anxiously
awaited the market share reports, I now find myself wondering what this
all means?  Do customers really care?  Do YOU take this into
consideration when planning to buy a server?  And, when there is a
change in leadership, is it because of technology or
pricing/packaging?  Until I can know for sure, I’ll keep following
this stuff but I could use a little help here….

Is this part of the larger trend where industries really can’t measure
anything?  Network and cable broadcasts complain about Nielson
Ratings, Politicians complain about polls and cite technical
differences between one poll and the next, and book publishers complain
about how few bookstores are REALLY measured to create the bestsellers
list…

Are marketplaces getting harder to measure and understand or do we just
have more sore losers raising objections.  Ultimately, it matter
less what is right and more what is being used so if these metrics
drive future sales it is a big deal. 

A new service from TechRepublic

In reply to Walking a fine line

While moving your mouse to click on the blogs area on TechRepublic you
may have noticed our new news area. If you didn’t see it
yet, I encourage you to take this for a test drive.
TechRepublic will be aggregating content (news, blog posts, press
releases, security releases, etc.) by topic allowing you to efficiently
gather information on everything from supply chain management to wireless networking to EMC to Bill Gates
from TechRepublic and across the internet. We are just starting
to integrate this this content into TechRepublic and eagerly anticipate
any feedback and suggestions you might have regarding this
service. Please feel free to drop me a line via the “send private
message” button on my profile page or by posting a comment to this blog post.

Happy browsing!

The wisdom of crowds

In reply to Walking a fine line

A great many of us here at TechRepublic have been taken in (and sometimes put off) by James Surowiecki’s book The Wisdom of Crowds.  The book’s tagline sums things up pretty well:

“Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies, and nations.” 

A very good read and I recommend it highly. 

A great many tech vendors are terrified by “the crowd.”  Specifically, they are terrified of blogs.  I’ve been in a great many conversations recently where vendors ask the question “what do you think we should be doing about blogs?”  I’ve seen reports saying that blogs aren’t used to research products and that they are more effective in attracting the attention of reporters and the media than actual customers.  If that is true I doubt it will stay that way.

We at TechRepublic have long believed in surfacing the voice of the many (even when we were owned by The Gartner Group – the epitome of ivory tower thinking in IT.)  We have discussion, Q&A, and now member blogs. It is pretty safe to say that the people who work at TechRepublic are pretty bought in to the idea of surfacing the wisdom of crowds.  So it is with some excitement that I started digging into Intelliseek’s BlogPulse product.  BlogPulse scans the blogosphere (beginning to really hate that term) and isolates coverage of particular topics.  So, you can learn that blogs about Linux comprise .3% of the entire Blogosphere.  Go to blog pulse yourself and take it for a spin.  And the next time you’re going to make a major investment with a vendor, see what the blogosphere is saying about them.  And pay it forward by blogging about your current investments while you’re at it. 

The wisdom of crowds

In reply to The wisdom of crowds

Check out this News.com story: “Jigsaw tries leveraging ‘Wisdom of Crowds’.” Good stuff!!

Katrina photos and ways to help

In reply to Walking a fine line

One of TechRepublic’s sister sites, Webshots, has posted a gallery of photos submitted by people who were in the path of Katrina. It also includes pointers to the American Red Cross.

Really amazing photos and the worst is beyond the lens of most people.

  

Katrina photos and ways to help

In reply to Katrina photos and ways to help

Amazing photos. What a tragedy for the people. Americans must support these refugees.

Malware for Alah?

In reply to Walking a fine line

ZDNet is reporting a story
about a trojan horse that intercepts browsers (not just IE mind you)
when a someone visits a porn site (or other site that the code sees as
porn like a medical site) and displays a message from the Koran in its
place. 

This is an interesting twist indeed.  People have talked about
cyber terrorism for some time and it has always been assumed (at least
by me) that attacks would come in the shape of very malicious viruses,
DOS, etc.  What if attacks on objectionable content is the next
wave of cyberterrorism?  Sites contain information on an
objectionable topic?  Redirected.  Reading an op-ed piece
that doesn’t match your political views?  Redirected. 

Standardization vs. innovation and competition

In reply to Walking a fine line

Three themes keep coming up on TechRepublic and I see them all pointing
to one place a fundamental conflict between standardization and
innovation within this industry. A news story and its subsequent discussion
helped crystallize my thoughts on this. I share the three themes
here and look forward to any reactions you might have:

Theme 1. Microsoft vs. Linux. Much has been written on this
and I’m really not trying to fuel that fire here. The subtext
(sometimes not subtext at all) of these
discussions/arguments/observations is this – Microsoft makes an
inferior product because its market dominance allows it to do this
again and again. How much of this is fair depends on who you
speak with. Some point to real issues with software quality,
program bloat, and security issues etc as indications of Microsoft’s lack
of quality. Others talk about the fact that being a market leader
attracts this kind of attention. Bugs are not exclusive to
Microsoft and most malicious code targets the market leader, especially
a leader with 90% market share. Of course there are more
complaints about Microsoft products, there are more people using them
than anything else.

Theme 2. The need for standardization. Businesses need to
easily manage and lock down systems. IT wants to have systems
work well with one another, be able to swap out items easily,
etc. The stronger the standard the easier it is to control and
manage a system. The reaction by many to the “Intel: Friend or
Foe?” story could be summed up like this – ” a business gives discounts
and special treatment to good clients? So what?” (This
discussion is still very young so the thread may evolve to include very
different views over time.) People may cheer on David when he
fights Goliath but in some instances it is nice to work with Goliath
because he usually wins.

Theme 3. Desperation/frustration with the IT field and
requirements for success in IT. Professionals need to constantly
study the technology to stay on top of the field. The job often
demands long hours repairing systems and getting systems up and
running. More time is needed to learn what’s new and the
risks/rewards for being creative are significant. However,
commoditization can create a reduced need for expertise. The more
standardization the more work can be outsourced which contributes to the despair and frustration found by some in IT.

These three items are all part of a challenge to our industry that
affects both the vendors that sell the products and the professionals
that use and support those products. Vendors want
standardization ONLY when the standard is theirs or one they are
aggressively supporting. It is their job to distinguish their
solution from the rest of the market. This drives innovation and,
often, improved products. Diversity drives their business
innovation until they are at the top of the heap and then they work to
incrementally improve their product while defending the real or
perceived standard.

IT looks for better, more secure, easily managed products. They
want to the pieces of the puzzle to fit together the first time and
they want to go home at night with the sense that they will be off of
work until the next morning. Yes, innovation and improvements are
welcome but not at the expense of security.

So we deal with these conflicts – the more standardized a product
becomes the more it becomes a target for attack. The more diverse
the product set the more IT has to learn, hack, patch, etc. to make the
pieces fit. The more challenging the job, the more their
expertise is in demand.

So what? I wish this post were leading to a big finish where I
point to some light at the end of the tunnel. We cheer on open
source threats to Microsoft products because they will either steal
Microsoft’s market share or force Microsoft to produce better
software. We watch with interest and concern as Google expands
its scope and people now talk about Google as the “new
Microsoft.”

Ultimately, I don’t think it is in our DNA to standardize so we live
with the challenges that this diversity bring. We make strides
forward with standards only to then create entirely new products that
make the old standard obsolete.

Getting off whatever soapbox I was on. Thanks for letting me rant.

Standardization vs. innovation and competition

In reply to Standardization vs. innovation and competition

The IT industry is not a homogenous lump.

Gartner typifies companies and their IT usage into three catagories.

Type A companies seek to use IT as a strategic advantage. By definition they need to be ahead of their competitors in terms of their IT capabilities and their ability to change directions and take advantage of shifting opportunities. They are early adopters. These companies look for innovative IT technologies and are more risk friendly.

Type B companies are in the mainstream and look for to keep IT at a reasonable cost. They favour standardization, buy versus build, using off the shelf components. They are more likely to outsource. They are risk averse. They don’t want to be on the leading edge , but lag behind it, learning from the early adopters.

Type C companies see IT as a cost to their business, and seek to spend as little as possible on IT. They will chose a standard, but not keep up with the latest releases to save money. They don’t see the value of IT to their business. They look to cost cutting as a constant. Don’t work for these companies….

Even this model is simplistic. There were many more Type As before the Internet bust. And a company may change from one to another.

 

James

 

 

Rumors start again with Oracle/Siebel…

In reply to Walking a fine line

I’m not sure if the rumors ever really stopped but the Mercury News ran a story this weekend
about the potential acquisition of Siebel by Oracle.  Oracle has
become a company I watch pretty closely.  Primarily because I’ve
been very impressed with how they absorbed Peoplesoft or, at the very
least, how they controlled any negative PR around the actual absorption
of Peoplesoft.  Given the amount of resistance from Peoplesoft
customers to the merger, it would seem that they have done a remarkable
job absorbing the company while continuing to grow their own
business. 

The tone of the Mercury News article suggests that this is
inevitable.  I don’t know about that but I usually would say that
these big mergers rarely work.   Oracle has convinced me that
they can.

Anyone experiencing significant issues with the Peoplesoft acquisition in their business? 

It’s official, Oracle to buy Siebel

In reply to Walking a fine line

Don’t often blog twice in the same morning but I thought I follow up on my morning post about these rumors with a pointer to the announcement.
The market contracts a bit more. Is salesforce.com next?
The tech market could be described in biblical terms:

In the beginning was Ellison and many talented employees. After a
time, Siebel, Conway, and Benioff went into exile and created their own
tribes.
Siebel acquired UpShot.
Conway acquired JD Edwards
Benioff acquired 1000s of followers.

Later still, Ellison welcomed back the followers of Siebel and Conway….

360 coverage of the Oracle Siebel love match

In reply to Walking a fine line

OK, my last post on this today I promise.  Just wanted to point
out the utility of one of our new features on TechRepublic – our Technology Updates section. 
If you want to look at the coverage of a news story as it evolves or
what to see many different takes on the same event you can easily do
this via this service.  Take a look at the coverage of the Oracle/Siebel deal.

Or, the ebay/skype deal also happening today. 

Gas is over $3, so where is the video conferencing?

In reply to Walking a fine line

Gas prices are high, many of the airlines are in real trouble, and
businesses continue to focus energy on cost cutting and increasing
productivity. Bandwidth is cheaper and you can get more of
it. So why aren’t video conferencing solutions growing more
quickly? Sure, people are using these tools but I have heard very
little about significant purchases in this area. It still feels
very optional with most companies. What’s more, I hear and see
very little about conferencing solutions that work across an
industry. What conferencing that is going on seems to be isolated
to a particular company.

As someone who’s been asked to fly a very long way for one meeting
(and, once, only to arrive and learn that the meeting was cancelled)
I’ve got a vested interest in this. I have to admit that I really
don’t like videoconferencing. It is a poor substitute for a good
face to face meeting. I think it could be better pretty easily I
just haven’t really participated in a video conference that was really effective.

Gas is over $3, so where is the video conferencing?

In reply to Gas is over $3, so where is the video conferencing?

Frankly, videoconferencing isn’t popular because the technology stinks.
Having done a (very) little radio and television production work in my
time, the level of equipment need just to get decent audio is
overwhelming, and video is even worse. A single camera and a single mic
for a room full of people is simply never going to work, and until the
awful latency issues are worked out for shared audio lines, people are
going to continue to talk over one another, which makes online
conferencing a painful experience for anyone.

Personally, I think the answer to being unable to meet in person is to
revisit the purpose of meetings. Too often, we use meetings as a s
ubstitute for good documentation, clear instructions, and good
old-fashioned memos. I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve been in
that were called simply to “go over an e-mail” or “review a document.”
If employees can’t be bothered to read their e-mail or comprehend a
document, the company has larger problems than high travel expenses.

King of the Mountain

In reply to Walking a fine line

King of the mountain was one of those games that every kid played but
very few really enjoyed. It always ended badly.  I think it is a
game designed to teach children how to behave in a corporate setting at
as early an age as possible.   Well, it seems as if the adult
version of the game has gotten a bit more intense recently.  While
Oracle’s acquisitions, ebay’s purchase or Skype, News Corp buying every
internet site it can, etc are all interesting, for my money the real
game is between Google and Microsoft.  Let’s be clear, Microsoft
is clearly king of the tech mountain.  But Google is charging
hard.  The latest assault may come from the rumors of Google’s interest in buying AOL.  Of course Microsoft is also rumored to be interested in AOL  and is reorganizing itself to, some think, counter the threat presented by Google. 

What’s interesting to me is how no one really likes the king of the
mountain.  Oh, we respect the king.  We will align ourselves
with the king but it is much more fun to actively root for the hard
charging challengers.  Of course, as a challenger emerges from the
pack and becomes a more serious threat, the glow wears off and people
start to view them with fear and suspicion as the potential new
king.  Interesting to watch Google turn from the little engine
that could into the big bad wolf in the space of a little over a
year. 

While this seems like a fight for the desktop I don’t think that it is
fair to assume that this is where it will end.  Microsoft has
significant interests beyond the end user and Google has shown itself
to be willing, ready, and able to go after multiple markets at the same
time.  While I doubt they would go after the traditional database
market and SQL Server directly I do think that they could develop and
market some ASP services that are squarely directed at traditional data
centers. 

It is certain that this won’t end without someone getting hurt.

Another typical Sunday – Birthday cake, talk of home heating and linux support costs

In reply to Walking a fine line

One of the fringe benefits of going to the birthday party
circuit for my 5 year old daughter is that I’m meeting a lot of IT pros
from major enterprises in the New York City area. For whatever reason,
our school district has attracted many senior IT pros to this small
town about 40 miles outside of Manhattan. And they all seem to have 5
year olds.

So I’m meeting a lot of TechRepublic members in rooms with clowns,
cake, and other various diversions. During one recent party, the
Managing Director for a major investment bank told me of his company’s
recent investment in migrating from Sun Solaris to an unnamed Linux
distro. For whatever reason, he was very secretive about the specific
Linux Distribution and insisted I not reveal the name of his company.

At any rate, for some reason we started talking about true TCO
measures of Data Center hardware/software and he had some very
interesting feedback on what’s propelling and holding back Linux in
very large enterprises.

1. Support costs. He saw no real difference in OS support costs from
Sun to this version of Linux. In fact, he thought the supported Linux
distro would actually be slightly more expensive than Sun and certainly
more expensive than Microsoft’s sever software.

2. The real savings? The other software he could get to run across
the network for no charge. He deployed a network monitoring program in
three weeks for no cost other than the time it took for him and his
staff to test the product. This software was built by university and
competes with components from many of the major software vendors. How
does it compare? His reply, I don’t know but I will tell you that we
wouldn’t have bought the other version because we had no budget for
this set aside and the whole process of getting budget may have made
the project a net loss. To him, Linux in his data center is about being
nimble and not making as many bets on unproven and expensive
technology.

3. Certification/training. He sees the big tipping point for Linux
in the large enterprises coming in the next 5 years. Every college kid
that cares about development and/or IT is setting up their own data
centers and training themselves in all sorts of environments and
situations they wouldn’t have been able to experience until recently
without expensive certification and/or lots of work experience.

Finally, a possible solution for the heating oil price crunch in
some parts of the country – build a data center in your basement.
Dealing with the heat he generates from his pretty significant home
set-up (he estimates over 40 servers) has drastically cut down the
amount of heating oil his house requires. What about the summer? He
estimates electricity is still so much cheaper than current oil prices
that he comes out ahead. He is also working on installing a wind
turbine and solar cells to improve that price differential even
further.

Walkie talkies. A proposal.

In reply to Walking a fine line

I was on the Long Island Railroad this morning.  MP3 player on, laptop fired up and looking at some proposed designs for new projects on TechRepublic when I hear an announcement over the train’s PA system.  I pull out my headphones only to realize that it is the walkie-talkie function on the phone of the guy next to me. 

“Server 42 didn’t back-up last night. Over” 

The guy proceeded to ignore the dirty looks of about 40 Long Islanders (wow, there’s a sight!) and discussed this and other items including the episode of “The Office” he watched last night. 

This got me thinking and I make this proposal to all people with or considering walkie talkie phones:

1.  Let’s all agree that walkie-talkies are cool and somehow speak to that inner 10 year old. 

2.  Let’s all agree that they could possibly come in handy in some instances.  Emergencies.  In your car.  Possibly when your on a site where everyone has walkie talkies.  Maybe paint ball.

3.  Let’s agree that phones with walkie talkies have the PHONE part for a very good reason.  So the entire area doesn’t have to listen to both halves of a conversation and preferably you can speak quietly enough that no one but you and the person you’re talking to has to hear you. 

Thank you.  I fell better now. 

Walkie talkies. A proposal.

In reply to Walkie talkies. A proposal.

Amen, brother.  Clearly they should give etiquette lessons to anybody buying one of those walkie-talkie phones.

Walkie talkies. A proposal.

In reply to Walkie talkies. A proposal.

Isn’t there some device that could be really easily built that would block all non-emergency-band wireless signals within hearing range? Most people are just as rude with their cell phones as they are with walkie-talkies. They actually talk LOUDER on a cell phone than they would if the other person were standing there. I don’t mind you using your cell phone in your car or in your office, but turn the blasted thing off when you’re on my train or standing in line behind me in the bank. Or else take speech lessons. It must be horrible to be on the other end of one of those things with people always screaming at you!

Walkie talkies. A proposal.

In reply to Walkie talkies. A proposal.

And how ’bout that annoying chirp after each person speaks. I know that
it is designed to provide feedback that the other person has finished
speaking; however, it is still very irritating. To me, it is just as
bad as hearing the conversation. Plus, it  seems to travel much
farther than the person’s voice so you can still hear the chirp even
when you can’t hear the people speaking.

Walkie talkies. A proposal.

In reply to Walkie talkies. A proposal.

i use to have a phone of  that type.  thought it was the
coolest thing. then i switch carriers and i just got really annoyed
with people that had those phone.  Eating in resturants, that beep
is really something i don’t want to hear. they put a button on the
phone to take it off of speaker phone for a reason, use it. 
that’s all they would have to do to make it not so annoying to everyone
and have their conversation transmitted to the local view area. 
just my two cents on the matter.

PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

In reply to Walking a fine line

My wife is getting her PhD in applied mathematics.  Her upcoming thesis work will require her to manipulate and analyze massive data sets on a regular basis.  While she has a decent laptop for her work and her university has some computing resources available to her it has become clear that a new desktop for the home was in order.  Our old PC has served us well but is 5 years old and showing signs of wear and tear.  Not the kind of system you ask to crunch millions of lines of data when you have to have results for your advisor by the next week. 

So I go to buy a desktop that will ably handle the workload.  2GB Ram, Powerful dual core processor, big hard drive, etc.  I’ve configured everything online but decided to call in my order to discuss a few items with the sales team.  Mind you, I knew exactly what I wanted and could show the person on the phone that very exact system. 

It turns out the PC I wanted to buy was a “business PC.”  Since I was purchasing this and didn’t possess a Federal Tax ID the vendor (who will remain nameless) wouldn’t sell me the system.  I could, however, buy an almost as good system from their home store.  The salesman proceeded to tell me that I didn’t need the kind of RAM head room that the system I wanted had and that there was no real difference in the system I could buy.  In fact, I could get some cool features like a titanium case for about the money I’d spend on the system I actually wanted. 

Of course, there were real differences.  RAM is important (especially with Vista on its way) and I found myself explaining the differences of the processor to the salesman (L2 cache does matter!  64-bit architecture may not mean much when browsing the web or using QuickBooks but it does when running SAS, S Plus, and other programs.) 

Why won’t a vendor sell me what I want to buy?  Why would a Federal tax ID entitle me to the better system?  Why should a vendor’s internal business rules impact what/how I buy?  The answer: commission for the salesperson.  I can find no other answer.

The result?  I told the salesperson and his manager they had lost the sale.  Researched other brands and found the same rules applied there. Other vendors didn’t produce the kind of system I was looking for or were much more expensive because the systems they sold were really for gamers and had expensive graphics and sound cards that I couldn’t justify (as much as I wish that weren’t the case.)  Finally, I just ordered online from the original vendor, left the tax ID form blank and the vendor took my order without issue. 

 

PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

In reply to PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

I’m curious as to why, after that hassle, you didn’t just buy the components and build your own high-end PC, knowing exactly what you were putting inside and what quality was going into the assembly?

Datorman@gmail.com

PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

In reply to PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

I certainly would have built my own system, or even yours for the asking.  Most vendors, do get commissions when they sell a unit, so I tend to stay away from them unless special support issues govern elsewise.  Vendors today are just trying to sell as many units as possible and don’t always now enough to properly advise you anyway.  Since you knew exactly what you wanted it would have been easy to purchase the needed parts and assemble them as well as install any operating system you required.  Next time just ask for someone who can help get all this done in a timely manner as befits your needs.  Most of us old timers have been assembling specialty systems and power house systems for years.  This is due to the industries failure to market these leading edge power house systems for a reasonable price.  Again, if there are going to be special support issues after the system is assembled you should carefully pick your parts vendor(s).  Software issues with registered software should not be a problem, hardware is slightly different.  Stick with larger more reputeable suppliers.  Motherboards, DDRAM recommended by MB manufacturer, hard disk drives and RAIDs, video displays (either built in or cards), CDROM/DVD’s should be from a larger brand name vendor. 

The deal with the Fed Tax ID is a bigger commission for the sales person. The bottom line, If the vendor won’t build the unit you need, don’t put up with the hassle, just build it yourself.  10 out of 10 times you will be more satisfied with this result, it proves mass marketing doesn’t always produce what you need when you need it.

PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

In reply to PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

I can’t speak for any other vendor, but my husband and I both used to
work for Gateway (back when they had the country stores), and the sales
folk sold business systems to home users ALL THE TIME.  Especially
during the Windows ME days.  Rather than stick a customer with a
system they knew would lock because of the OS, they would sell the
business system with Windows 98 or 2000 on it.  The country stores
closed in April 2004, but I can’t believe the rules/laws have changed
so much that they really cannot sell they system to a non-business
now.  That sure seems crazy.  But, hey, I’m not a saleperson;
I just fix ’em after the sale. 

PC vendors don

In reply to PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

Just a couple tidbits of info, and an alternate source of customized
PCs.

The Federal Tax ID for sole proprietorships is the owner’s Social Security
Number, so you do have a business Federal Tax ID without even knowing it.
Having said that, I can think of no legitimate reason why a PC supplier would
need that number from you when you were buying a product from them.

If they were PAYING you for some reason, they would need to know your Federal
Tax ID number because of the IRS regulations covering the issuance of 1099s to
non-corporate suppliers.

I am not happy about the number of companies that have my
SSN because I’ve done consulting work for them, but I’ve never had to give my
SSN to a company that is a supplier to me. I don?t remember a case of
even being asked for it by a supplier.

I’ve bought “business” PCs for my proprietorship before, without
giving any indication to a supplier that it was anything more than a basic
“home office” machine, but then my needs are less processing-intense
than yours.

I am quite willing to open a PC box to add RAM or a new
internal drive/device/etc., and lately I’ve contemplated building my own PCs, but
right now my favorite method of acquiring new machines is to find a local
computer company that builds no-name boxes to my specifications. I’ve
never been disappointed by one of those. While it is likely a tad more
expensive than if I built the PC myself, I like buying local just for
“community support” reasons, I don’t have spend the time to hassle
with ordering and assembling all the separate components, and if something does
go wrong with a component, my local supplier replaces it and takes care of
dealing with the component manufacturer/vendor it got the original component
from. You may want to consider that
option next time.

For what it’s worth,

kraester, CPA (inactive)

PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

In reply to PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

I don’t want to casually throw around any unjust allegations, but the U.S. does have strict laws on possible export of certain levels (computing power) of computers.  Many larger companies, and some smaller ones (like mine) have policies in place that might go beyond what is absolutely needed, but which are designed to prevent any possible violation of those export laws.  Sounds like your manufacturer might fall into this category.  I very much doubt that commissions had anything to do with it!

PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

In reply to PC vendors don’t want to sell me a PC!

Wow, this struck a chord.  I know for a fact this was all about
the fact that the salesteam wouldn’t get credit for the sale.  I
did buy the system I wanted later – I just didn’t use sales rep (I had
wanted to verify that I was getting a dual core chipset for this system
and their site didn’t make this clear but that’s another blog
post…)  I got a call from a PC vendor wondering if

I didn’t build a PC becuase my wife needed it ASAP and the parts I was
looking for are difficult to get (3.8 GHZ Intel Dual Core Chipet.)

I did have to verify that I would only use this PC in the US. 

We’ve updates our Technology Updates

In reply to Walking a fine line

Take a look at the new layout and features for our news site, Technology.updates.com.
In addition to featuring more recent news story from across the web,
we’ve also expanded our coverage of products, companies, and topics
with a variety of tag clouds on the front door. If you want to
learn about the latest developments in linux, Microsoft Sql server, or Cisco Systems (to name a few) you can get it in one place. This is available from our top navigation bar by clicking news.

Feedback, ideas, suggestions, concerns are welcome.

Google/Sun pact

In reply to Walking a fine line

 So Google and Sun are aiming directly at the Death Star’s reactor – desktop productivity software. That is the underlying tone of about half of the news analysis surrounding the announcement by Google and Sun that they will work together on a multi-year distribution deal for Sun’s OpenOffice. This has many obvious possible implications for Microsoft and the 90+% clients using Microsoft Office. I leave the discussion of those implications to other blogs. What I want to focus on is the important and so far, at least from what I’ve seen, overlooked point, we are viewing Google 2.0. Google is making some very definite choices with their business that reveals a Google agenda that isn’t necessarily about making the entire world’s information available to the entire world. Google has changed from a startingly simple and useful web application to a sprawling all encompassing information platform.

First, the distribution deal, if it is to work, will require Google to raise up StarOffice above other options.  It will not be about relevant search results based on complex and changing algorithms.  It will be about Google shining a spotlight on this solution.  It may be the best solution in the world but this is a change for Google. 

Second, this is clearly about taking out Microsoft.  At least knocking them down a peg.  While this is a good business move in my opinion it is not what Google has said it is about.  It is not a part of the promise they had set out to fulfill.  Do no evil?  Is this evil?  I don’t know.  But this is fork in the road for a company with a great deal of influence. 

Could OpenOffice, the work they are doing to supposedly bring wi-fi access to the entire United States (or a least major metro areas,) and other rumored or announced initiatives bring about useful, important, and market changing solutions?  Absolutely.   And I’m not saying that it is a bad thing at all.  The challenge to Microsoft’s dominance could produce much better and cheaper office productivity solutions for the entire world.   

Some will say I’m being a naive.  A goody, goody.  Microsoft doesn’t sit idle while competitors challenge their business plans and neither should Google.  I’d say you’re right.  My only point is that Google presented itself and won fans by being a provider of information as openly as possible.  These recent moves mark Google 2.0.  Not good, not bad, and probably not evil but not the same Google. 

Google/Sun pact

In reply to Google/Sun pact

Google isn’t alone in this, either. Apparently, every Web app developer is looking to take a chunk out of MS Office’s hide,
if only from a collaboration standpoint. I’ll be curious to see how
Microsoft responds, especially considering how clunky some of the MS
Word collaboration add-ons like OneNote have been. As a veteran user of
the ‘track changes’ feature (which is awful), one can only hope your
predicted improvements come to pass.

Google/Sun pact

In reply to Google/Sun pact

The most useful outcome of this partnership will clearly be less
directly financial gain and more on influence. Microsoft’s
strength due to the monopoly with Office is undeniable. I have
been using two beta’s recently (StarOffice 8 and Projity for project
management) that offer cost effective alternatives that eliminate the
need to use Office. If these are successful it will be an
enormous blow to Microsoft’s plans to leverage this strengh and extend
into ERP, CRM and other areas. StarOffice has the word
processing, spreadsheet and presentation equivalents. Projity has
a project management solution that is a replacement for Project.
These solutions open existing files so switching does not take time or
effort. If these get out there then Microsoft will be
in trouble !

The Google/Sun partnership will be most effective if they can bring
Google’s great consumer attentive audience to solutions like StarOffice  and Projity. StarOffice 8 is out of beta and the Projity solution
I think is coming out of beta. If Microsoft gets knocked in these
areas it will become much more difficult to extend into other
areas. That my friends may ultimately be the outcome of
yesterdays mumbled, opaque announcements……

Off the grid

In reply to Walking a fine line

The dispute between
Level 3 and Cogent Communications raises all sorts of questions around the
topic of Grid Computing.  If your business relies on very broadly
distributed computing grids, you have a new set of concerns.  While a grid
is set up to allow for efficient use of computing resources by allocating
processing power to applications dynamically it often must rely on multiple
service providers to stay connected.  The consolidation of many of the
major Telcos should help make this easier but there are still significant
challenges ahead in this area. 

Yet another example of the risks and rewards of depending on a very diverse
portfolio of solution providers…

Home, James…

In reply to Walking a fine line

I love new technology announcements but I’ve got mixed feelings when I
hear people talk about how some new development.  Whether it is an
early feedback on some medical trial (“ice cream can stop cancer!”) or
some the electric car that can produce 300hp and get 130 mpg, it always
feels like early results typically get buried or the early promise gets
amplified by wishful thinking and the application to the larger world
is far, far behind. 

It is with that perspective, that I get unrealistically excited about Stanford winning the DARPA Grand Challenge. 
It was a pretty impressive feat with all sorts of implications for how
we travel in the future.  I remember watching a show on traffic
congestion on PBS that said that congestion would be basically
eliminated if a small percentage of cars were driven robotically. 
Apparently, it is a few bad eggs that make traffic horrible for all of
us.  

Clearly, this technology is still far from helping me get into the city
more quickly.  It was developed for the military to lower the
number of missions that require humans in order to reduce
fatalities.  Like the internet, DARPA may invest in this for
military functions but end up changing the world from in a much larger
sense. 

Perhaps this technology will combine with the whole flying car technology I’ve been waiting for since I was 6… 

Compliance issues played out on TechRepublic

In reply to Walking a fine line

There are a number of interesting discussions this week (one here and another here)
focusing on the challenges faced by public companies. The
challenge is a very human one and in both cases, the problems stemmed
from senior staff at public companies. Vendors are devoting a
great deal of time and attention to software solutions to aid in
corporate governance. It appears as if many company’s management
could also use some training on the fundamentals of the law as
well.

Why won’t they call?

In reply to Walking a fine line

I was talking to a friend that is opening a new small business.  Every vendor I speak to tells me how important the Small and Medium business marketplace is to their future success.  Many vendors that have made a very nice living selling to “enterprises” are now finding that their traditional customers have bought and there is reduced growth from this sector.  As smaller businesses can afford more technological horsepower, they are buying solutions that used to be exclusively the domain of the largest and richest companies. 

So I listened with great interest as my friend talked about how he was looking for a number of applications for his business – point of sales CRM packages that can handle ecommerce and in store sales, general ledger applications, etc. So he researches some vendor?s solutions using white papers and going to their sites for online demos, etc.  A solution looked extremely interesting and he signed up for contact by a rep from the company.  Now, this is a company I’ve met with that speaks highly of the importance of growing this part of their market.  They have bought companies to improve their product line for these smaller implementations. 

Now, the trick. 

There are 1000s of these companies looking for these solutions.  In the past, a vendor could make millions by selling to a few companies with very deep pockets and complex business requirements.  How does a company built to sell to one group reconfigure itself to sell to another?  Not very well apparently.  My friend waits for a call back.  He wants to buy – or at least hopes that the solution is one that he would want to buy.  He just needs to speak with people who can help him make that call.  

Still no call. 

He won’t be the largest sale whatever salesperson assigned to his territory will make but he represents the growth market that this company identified themselves.  The road to growth for so many vendors is the SMB marketplace.  That road requires completely new products, new sales structures, and the same kind of responsiveness a major enterprise would receive.

Why won

In reply to Why won’t they call?

I had a good deal of vendor interest about ten months ago when I was
replacing our entire small business’ infrastructure – five servers, 20
workstations, monitors, printers and software. Since then, I can
barely get a quote for “maintenance items” (individual servers,
printers etc.) within a week from the same vendor. There seems to
be dedication to helping the small business when there is a large
commission to be made – they are not concerned with the recurring nickle
and dime sales.

Why won’t they call?

In reply to Why won’t they call?

I own an IT vendor firm that four years ago moved from serving major global enterprise clients to trying to serve the SMB market.  Our resulting experience has forced us to move back upstream to the enterprise market while keeping only the largest of our SMB clients.  This is not due to commission structures, but because our sales people, and management, grew enormously frustrated with the purchase and decision making processes of many SMBs.  Our people wound up investing the same amount of time, and often quite a bit more, to close sales that were only 10% – 40% of a typical purchase from our larger clients. The lower level of technical sophistication, combined with the amount of hand holding required by many SMBs resulted in our firm selling smaller service packages over a longer period of time that required more support, much of which was expected to be provided for free prior to the purchase of any maintenance agreements.  This is a recipe for disaster that would put many companies out of business.  

There is a very significant difference between working with a large company to sell it something that you know it wants, in an environment where you are competing with other firms for budgeted dollars, where sales cycles are longer but fairly consistent and the client does not necessarily want much hand holding, versus attempting to sell to a smaller firm that may be just “looking” or is attempting to educate themselves prior to really analyzing their options, have zero or little known budget, and often requires far more education around the solution(s) being sought.

My recommendations are: 1) SMBs not receiving call backs due to commission structures should change vendors. 2)Be up front and honest with yourself and your vendors, don’t force them to spend rediculous amounts of time educating you and your people so that you are then ready to begin analyzing all competing vendors and solutions.  If this is your need, educate yourself on your own time. 3) If you are lucky enough to find a vendor that will spend lots of time educating you and providing advice for free (which we still do a LOT of), remain loyal to that vendor and it will pay off in the long run.  Don’t jump ship to save a few bucks whenever possible because soon that vendor will no longer be willing to help you build your business as a partner by providing valuable insight, and will begin viewing you as an underperforming “account”.

Why won’t they call?

In reply to Why won’t they call?

I own an IT vendor firm that four years ago moved from serving major global enterprise clients to trying to serve the SMB market.  Our resulting experience has forced us to move back upstream to the enterprise market while keeping only the largest of our SMB clients.  This is not due to commission structures, but because our sales people, and management, grew enormously frustrated with the purchase and decision making processes of many SMBs.  Our people wound up investing the same amount of time, and often quite a bit more, to close sales that were only 10% – 40% of a typical purchase from our larger clients. The lower level of technical sophistication, combined with the amount of hand holding required by many SMBs resulted in our firm selling smaller service packages over a longer period of time that required more support, much of which was expected to be provided for free prior to the purchase of any maintenance agreements.  This is a recipe for disaster that would put many companies out of business.  

There is a very significant difference between working with a large company to sell it something that you know it wants, in an environment where you are competing with other firms for budgeted dollars, where sales cycles are longer but fairly consistent and the client does not necessarily want much hand holding, versus attempting to sell to a smaller firm that may be just “looking” or is attempting to educate themselves prior to really analyzing their options, have zero or little known budget, and often requires far more education around the solution(s) being sought.

My recommendations are: 1) SMBs not receiving call backs due to commission structures should change vendors. 2)Be up front and honest with yourself and your vendors, don’t force them to spend rediculous amounts of time educating you and your people so that you are then ready to begin analyzing all competing vendors and solutions.  If this is your need, educate yourself on your own time. 3) If you are lucky enough to find a vendor that will spend lots of time educating you and providing advice for free (which we still do a LOT of), remain loyal to that vendor and it will pay off in the long run.  Don’t jump ship to save a few bucks whenever possible because soon that vendor will no longer be willing to help you build your business as a partner by providing valuable insight, and will begin viewing you as an underperforming “account”.

Why won’t they call?

In reply to Why won’t they call?

I agree. I work for a SMB under 100 employees in the IS department.  If you can’t take care of at least 50% of the decision making process, there is a major problem.  When I look to make a purchase I’m 80-90% sure of what I want with a few product specific questions.

Lots of growth for Linux but still a long way to go

In reply to Walking a fine line

TechRepublic recently asked members to specify how many Linux servers they had running in their business.  The answers may surprise you. You can view the results here. Only 10% of respondents claimed to have more than 25 Linux servers. Our most recent member survey (a more rigorous study to be sure) showed that the average member is responsible for a technology infrastructure supporting 1600 employees. 

There are probably many items at play here: 

1. Linux used on with limited applications.  Members are using Linux to run their web servers, e-mail, or some other limited application and the rest of their business is running on UNIX, Windows, AS400, etc. 

2.  Linux is still being tested by a large number of businesses.  I’ve talked to a number of members that are using Linux in test environments in advance of possible moves.  Often the move to Linux co-incides with a major installation or upgrade.  If that upgrade is still being tested, it would be on a limited number of servers. 

3.  Linux users don’t take polls

The Linux footprint can easily be over estimated on TechRepublic.  Sentiments for Linux are extremely positive and there are many members that are happy to justify why these sentiments are so strong.  At any rate, rumors of Microsoft’s/Sun’s/etc. demise are still rumors if this data is to be believed. 

Lots of growth for Linux but still a long way to go

In reply to Lots of growth for Linux but still a long way to go

The poll asked for the number of Linux servers installed.  It
didn’t ask for Linux servers as a percentage of total servers.

If I have 25 servers and all of them run Linux, that says more about my
satisfaction with the OS than if I have 25 Linux servers out of several
hundred.

Lots of growth for Linux but still a long way to go

In reply to Lots of growth for Linux but still a long way to go

Measuring satisfaction would be very interesting and I agree, this
doesn’t measure the entire issue.  We’ll work on trying to capture
satisfaction at some point this fall.  However, 44% claim to have
no Linux servers at their business and many have less than 5.  

IT professional, you are surrounded. Come out with your hands up?.

In reply to Walking a fine line

So much of the technology used by businesses originated in the public sector.  The list of most powerful computers is largely filled with computers created for governmental institutions around the world.  The internet itself originated as a network for the US Department of Defense to communicate from a variety of locations.  DARPA continues to push the envelope with robotic transportation.  I tend to think about new developments coming down from on high and look to those expensive, well established research areas to see what is coming to a business near me in the next few years?

I?m finding I have to adjust my eyes to other areas to see where the new challenges and opportunities for business present themselves. 

There are more and more technologies influencing the business world that are surfacing from the consumer space.  Some might argue that technologies like peer-to-peer networks, instant messaging; AJAX, etc. are not rooted exclusively in the consumer world.  That may be true.  However, it is the business person using these technologies (or services based on these technologies) as a consumer that are forcing IT to take them seriously. 

I spoke with an IT Manager for a financial services company recently about how much trouble they were having with employees and instant messaging.  They had recently deployed a new corporate messaging service that allows them to be much more diligent (read cover their butts) on communication via IM.  No one wanted to use it.  Everyone had buddy lists that were a mix of clients, co-workers, friends, and family and the service they selected did not allow for communication with all of these parties.  They are now able to cross this off their list of compliance risks but works have lost the utility they once found from IM.  There are other examples:

I spoke with the founder of WiMax.com yesterday – he sees the future of mobile business platforms being driven by teenagers with cell phones downloading Mp3’s, games, etc.  and not the government. 

I look around my office as people walk in with various 5GB to 60GB hard drives in their hands and wonder how my company, and every other company in the world, is protecting their data from malicious employees.  What are the business applications of really large flash memory devices and how to they change the way businesses function?

The recent Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco presented all sorts of ideas that blur the line between an application and a service. 

 Add to this the increased interest in governments across the world to mandate particular technology standards and you have IT organizations surrounded.  Regulation, Massachusetts naming OpenOffice the standard for all state documents, FCC involve etc present further complications for an organization.

what I love about open source

In reply to Walking a fine line

Corporate CEOs find themselves in a position similar to politicians. Reporters, the general public, investors, etc. are all looking to the CEO for slips, hints, and gaffs.  The game is high stakes.  At the same time, CEOs are in a unique position to take advantage of the platform they receive to speak to the world. They MUST be on message. As a result, most CEOs are very careful about measuring and monitoring their language and say the same thing many, many times.  Usually, it is easy to see the motivations behind these statements.

Which gets me back to the point of my post. Matthew Szulik, Red Hat Software’s CEO, made the following comments yesterday at the Vortex Conference in San Francisco: “Customers are saying they want independence: ‘I’m tired of one or two vendors that have a knee on my throat.'” Clearly, Szulik and Red Hat have a clear agenda it just happens to be a similiar to the agenda of most businesses… choice. 

For Halloween, I want to be Boba Fett

In reply to Walking a fine line

Yesterday, TR Staffer Michael Beganny took a little field trip to the Boston Museum of Science to see the new Star Wars exhibit.  First, let me say that I’m jealous.  Very jealous of this trip.  Nothing takes me back to my first grade times like a good shot of a land speeder. 

You can view the whole photo gallery from Michael’s field trip here. 

Interesting article on standards the battles over them

In reply to Walking a fine line

IDC’s Roger Kay weighs in on the issue of standards (particularly wireless standards) in an article here. 
Kay seems to suggest that many of these standards battles become more
important as the technology is applied to consumer uses. 

Any time standards are discussed I flash back to my time working as an
engineer (or sorts) at a TV station.  All of the senior engineers
loved to talk about the technical merits of Betamax tapes over
VHS.  We all know how that standards war played out for
consumers.  Professional video operations still used (and probably
use to this day) betamax tape for the same reasons. 

Is it the split between professional and consumer needs, price sensitivites, etc. that create these standards wars? 

Interesting article on standards the battles over them

In reply to Interesting article on standards the battles over them

I think it is something much simpler — money. The technology that wins
the consumer over (whether it is VHS or Beta, HD DVD or BluRay, Windows
or… well never mind that one) stands to make the company that created
or championed it a fortune.

Interesting article on standards the battles over them

In reply to Interesting article on standards the battles over them

On the consumer side, of course.  Money flows to the
company/companies that become the standard or de facto standard. 
However, the professionals – whether they are in TV, IT, or some other
field have the ability to go against the consumer standard and
typically have the spending power, technical ability, etc. to buck the
standard or create a secondary standard.  One of the common
complaints heard in IT is there aren’t enough standards and the
continual changing of technologies puts professionals on a hampster
wheel. 

Sony made/makes (?) a very nice margin on Betamax tapes even though
they lost the volume sales that would have come with Beta being the
standard for the consumer market. 

A PC you have to replace every week?

In reply to Walking a fine line

And now for something completely different…

Look at what some people at University of Arkansas have created using
everyone’s favorite Halloween icon – the pumpkin.  My favorite
part of this little oddity is the “Intel Inside” logo found just above
the DVD-RW drive.  The photo gallery links to a site where you can
view more photos.  Unless someone can direct me to some
application for this project I will chalk this up to the wonderful
world of college where so many things a student does has no practical
application. 

A PC you have to replace every week?

In reply to A PC you have to replace every week?

Here in the U.K. at least it is a use for pumpkinsthat dont get eaten

 

I think it is a good use of imagination. typical uni/college.

 

Especially the intel nose.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

In reply to Walking a fine line

Sun and IBM are holding a one day conference on the Open Document Format (ODF) this Friday. There are many angles to this announcement. I’d like to focus on one.

Microsoft is inspiring all sorts of “Kumbaya moments” for our industry.

I must say I have little experience with ODF and, so far, I’m very happy to sit on the sidelines and watch as developments progress on this front. From the sidelines, what I find most interesting is how these market rivals (ask a Sun salesperson about UNIX Market share and why IBM is growing at Sun’s expense and you will see the rivalry) are getting together to further an initiative that clearly hits Microsoft below the belt, it’s ultra-lucrative Office product line.

Web 2.0 Microsoft Style

In reply to Walking a fine line

Bill Gates recently unveiled the next wave of products from Microsoft. All of the products have “Live” in the title. ZDNet’s Dan Farber writes, “It’s about connecting users at the center, with relationships with people, data people care about, applications and all devices coming together to do things for you.”

This follows on Microsoft’s announcement that the Windows and MSN groups will merge. I tried one of their new Live applications, http://www.live.com and here are my thoughts: 

They announce very prominently “Firefox users, Firefox support coming soon. Please be patient. ;)” Whoa. That could be interesting. Will this be the start of the thaw over the browser wars? 

The application itself is little more than an RSS reader with some hooks into MSN and various other Microsoft Passport gated applications.

Microsoft has a ton of other services in the works. Most compete with existing services but I’m excited to give a few of these a whirl.

This move doesn’t feel like a market leader moving forward on an ambitious project, it feels like a company trying to illustrate how it gets it. It seems as if Microsoft is barely balancing on a very high beam. Their competitive edge has always been the fact that they OWN the desktop. These moves seem to be conceding that the desktop is less important than it used to be. 

Without the desktop advantage, they are facing some pretty serious competition from a number of camps – ASP companies like salesforce, web providers like Google, a number of really interesting start-ups like 37 signals, and Yahoo and the re-invigorated AOL to name a few. Read about the Microsoft Live announcement from a variety of sources at TechRepublic’s news service, technology.updates.com.

Now why would I think about servers when buying coffee?

In reply to Walking a fine line

Occasionally, I will stop in at the Dunkin’ Doughnuts right next to my
office in New York City before starting my day. For those of you not
familiar with Dunkin’ Doughnuts coffee, you are missing out. It is
quite good and about half the price of those other coffee shops . I ran
into a co-worker as I came out with my coffee today and asked me how I
could so regularly frequent a place with such poor customer service
(this shop is an “only in New York” kind of experience.) Without much
thought I was able to answer that I was willing to sacrifice customer
service for a good, cheap cup of coffee in the morning.

As I sat down in my office I began thinking about the news story I read
this week about Dell’s rather drastic turn for the worse in Server
support surveys. Clearly, server customers aren’t in a position to
sacrifice customer service for price. I’ve long listened to people sing
the praises of Dell and their ability to lower costs while maintaining
equal or better service. Has Dell finally found a point where they
can’t support at the same level while retaining their price
competitiveness? There have been chinks in the armor on the PC and
Laptop side for some time and while they are still tops in most surveys
their lead is narrowing and the difference in support is very apparent
to long-time customers.

Is this slip a momentary issue, as Dell would have us believe, is this
really about other server vendors improving their service while holding
down costs, or is this a fork in the road for Dell?

Now why would I think about servers when buying coffee?

In reply to Now why would I think about servers when buying coffee?

Or the 4th option.

Many tried and true fans of IBM servers, and Compaq servers are used to paying a little more and expecting better service. But recent events make them nervous. IBM sells off its desktops and laptops to a foreign company. Compaq becomes more and more like HP everyday, and not like HP in the good old days of VAX.

So more people are willing to stick their toe in the Dell server waters to try them out. And many are pulling them back out….

There were signs in years past. Dell took its support centre for corporate products back from India and put it in North America – because of customer dissatisfaction. I don’t think customers are discovering vast improvements from the traditional players in the server market.

 

James

550 years of blogs and Microsoft’s Cheap Trick?

In reply to Walking a fine line

According to the host of American Public Media’s Marketplace, workers
will spend the equivalent of 550 years reading blogs at work in
2005. Here’s hoping whatever portion of that time is spent with
TechRepublic’s blogs provides some benefit.

In other news, here’s a link to full coverage of Microsoft’s SQL Server Launch. You can also check out what’s new in this photo gallery
of the launch where the band Cheap Trick provided music. Making
no judgments about the band, is any band named Cheap Trick a smart move
when launching a new version of a very popular product?

TechRepublic was on the Today show?

In reply to Walking a fine line

At least that is what my five year old daughter said.
I try to keep the personal out of my blog but I felt like sharing this
conversation.

My daughter: “Mommy, Mommy Mommy! They’re talking about
TechRepublic on the Today show!” (She proceeds to bounce around
excitedly.)

My wife (after listening for a while 🙂 “Honey, you’re very
close. They are talking about the Czech Republic. That’s a
country.”

TechRepublic is taking over the world!

TechRepublic was on the Today show?

In reply to TechRepublic was on the Today show?

Czech you 😉

Pandemic flu might just make the paperless office a neccessity…

In reply to Walking a fine line

Phil Windley of ZDNet has a really interesting blog post today
discussing the planning businesses must do to prepare for disasters –
not the whole disaster recovery set of issues but the connectivity and
productivity issues. Read the post here.

A while ago I wrote about the myth of the paperless office
and how so many organizations had gone half way but still relied too
heavily on physical paper. Perhaps a catastrophe like pandemic avian
flu or other situation like that will quickly force the hand of a
number of businesses to take connectivity, paperless communication,
etc. more seriously. Let’s hope this remains a hypothetical post…

Still, Windley’s question is a good one, is your business ready?

Your business considering outsourced data center support? Read this

In reply to Walking a fine line

A ZDNet discussion about the trend toward software services prompted this response in it talkback section.  I know only a few people every click out, so I will include a portion here: 

I’m
going to reveal a dirty little secret of the computing services
industry. They deliberately fail. I used to work for a F500 company
that delivered services on a global basis. Ready for the business
model? It goes like so:

* Sign an agreement with the customer at a rock bottom price, and promise the same SLA as your competitors.

*
For the first few months of the contract, devote an overwhelming amount
of resources towards supporting and delighting that customer, at the
expense of your other customers.

* After the first few months,
under support the customer, as you do all of your customers, because
otherwise you won’t make a profit.

* When the customer
complains, or contract renewal is near, devote an overwhelming amount
of resources towards supporting and delighting that customer, at the
expense of your other customers.

Business leaders everywhere are under pressure to “deliver value”
and cut costs.  If your company is considering bringing in on-site
or call center support they will need to work very carefully on the
creation of VALUE while they cut costs.

Your business considering outsourced data center support? Read this

In reply to Your business considering outsourced data center support? Read this

Yes, I know this one, can I play please?

 

Here is another great tactic.

Sign up the company for a good price and good SLA. Base it on their existing level of service requirements. Buy out their computing equipment infrastructure at rock bottom prices.

Then charge extraordinary fees for implementing any changes to the environment. Add additional server capacity, add email users, host new applications – charge twice the going rate. You can count on the customer to under estimate the growth. They will be shocked when they see the fees, but since you own the equipment, they can hardly walk away can they?

You will probably lose them  once the contract period ends, but then, you’ve made a handy profit and can move on to the next company.

 

James

Desktop OS upgrades, linux vs. Vista for big retail?

In reply to Walking a fine line

Late last week, Gartner came out with a recommendation
that businesses upgrade to Microsoft Vista sometime in 2008. The
main
benefit Gartner sees with Vista is improved security. They claim
that
most of these benefits are available from other providers right
now. Basically, no need to rush out unless you seek some of the
new functionality for a specific application you are running.

The whole discussion made me think of a conversation I had during a recent once a
weekend trip to Home Depot. I was making my latest set of purchases for the
money pit (this time a new back door that actually keeps the cold air out) when
I was informed that the rather detailed order might not be executed that day due to computer
issues. It seems that the order entry system at this (and the associate
thought it was all) Home Depots runs on Windows 98. They had recently
upgraded the back end systems and were having significant challenges getting
Windows 98 to interface with the new system.

My company, and TechRepublic’s parent company, CNET Networks is one of those
companies that pretty aggressively follows the upgrade path of the major
software packages including Windows and Office. Our business requires
that our web sites work with all platforms, browsers, etc. and that mandates an
early adopter upgrade path. Being in this environment, it is easy to
forget about the many huge businesses that “lock and load” a desktop
OS once every 10 years or so.

My Home Depot sales person connected me with the systems guy
that was trying to
make things work at this location. He wouldn’t tell me much as
soon as he
found out that I work for a media company that I might write about what
he said ( he was a consultant and not a Home Depot employee.) He
did say
that the company’s training curriculum is rooted in 98 and is a massive
investment (imagine the number of new employees hired by Home Depot in
a given
year!) kept the company from
upgrading.

Will Home Depot take the plunge with Vista? Is Gartner’s 2008
recommendation
on track? Or will the next upgrade be to a Linux desktop?
Or, will
Home Depot move to a platform independent browser-based
application? Home
Depot are locked and loaded on 98 because they have the OS secure, have
stripped out unnecessary services, and can run the OS on very low cost
systems. It would seem that they somewhat regularly have growing
pains with this system (and may lose a significant amount of revenue
when they can’t take orders. They are likely to move to a new
system sooner than later. They seem like excellent candidates for a desktop linux roll out.

Even if Vista proves to be
significantly more secure than past Microsoft Desktop operating
systems, why
would they replace all of their low cost desktops (the store I visited
had over
150 systems) with systems that require 10x the RAM to simply run the
OS?

I’m sure Home Depot’s IT organization is evaluating Vista and other
options. Given my regular visits to the store, I’m fairly sure
I’ll be able to share information on Home Depot’s decision shortly
after it rolls out.

Desktop OS upgrades, linux vs. Vista for big retail?

In reply to Desktop OS upgrades, linux vs. Vista for big retail?

I would say go with linux in this type of case.
the open standards of linux documents, and better netowrking support of linux would stop this type of issue from happening.

most linux based word processing applications do not change file
formats with new versions, maintaining the backwards compatability that
MS Office lacks.
[ most are slowly changing their document formats to an xml based
format, and are working on cross application compatability. K Office
and Open Office are using the exact same file format already, so either
word processor can open either’s files natively, not via import ]

Desktop OS upgrades, linux vs. Vista for big retail?

In reply to Desktop OS upgrades, linux vs. Vista for big retail?

jaqui, it’s probably not a question of word processor or open format
documents.  It’s probably a question of rewriting custom
applications, like the afore mentioned order entry system.  That’s
going to require the company’s applications programmers to learn to
work with a whole new set of APIs before they can even start rewriting
the apps.

Desktop OS upgrades, linux vs. Vista for big retail?

In reply to Desktop OS upgrades, linux vs. Vista for big retail?

Not only would custom apps have to be re-written, but employees would have to be re-trained on a new platform, the Home Depot would either have to hire a Linux programming team or retrain existing IT people.  Then there are the hardware issues. Not all printers/multi function devices work under Linux. And what does Home Depot do with the tons of paperwork it generates? If it stores them on an optical storage and retrieval system, does THAT system run under Linux?

 

My point is that while linux may be an alternative to Windows, getting there may not be as easy and as painless as those Linux zealots want us to believe.

We really want to hear from users about the Workspace

In reply to Walking a fine line

As you likely have seen, we launched a new feature to TechRepublic called the Workspace. 
If you’re a registered user and logged in, you can access the Workspace
on any page from TechRepublic header (Click on the “my Workspace” on
the top navigation bar on any page.) 

You can also get a tutorial on the Workspace here. 

Now, the important part, WE NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU.  We have had a
great many people send us feed back but we need to hear from you. 
Any and all feed back is most welcome. 

We really want to hear from users about the Workspace

In reply to We really want to hear from users about the Workspace

I like the feature, but the blue is a bit to much 🙂

Services, services everywhere

In reply to Walking a fine line

Microsoft’s announcement
and details since the announcement that it will move more aggressively
toward a business model centered on services instead of software
certainly has a lot of people buzzing. 
Beyond Microsoft’s entry (actually, the announcement that they WILL
enter this space) there are 100s if not thousands of other software
offered as services throughout the industry. 

I keep thinking back to my time in the late 90’s when I worked for PC
World and it seemed that I was speaking to new Application Service
Providers every day.  Hosted business applications, hosted
everything (the office in a box!,) hosted CRM (one of the survivors,)
Intel and SAP’s partnership to bring ERP to smaller companies in a
hosted format, etc. 

What makes this go around with software services different?  What hurdles still remain? 

Certainly access is much better and cheaper than it was in the
1990s.  Browser technology has evolved significantly.  The
services companies here today have built much more flexible services –
one frequent problem with the early ASP’s was their inability to
business situations that differed from their initial design. 

What hasn’t changed – 

Trust – If my business is moves its data to this service can I trust
that it will remain safe?  How does the service provider deal with
my competitors? 

Portability – What if I choose to leave the service.  How do I migrate data? 

Service –  If Software is a service, can I be sure I will get SERVICE? 

Fractals anyone?

In reply to Walking a fine line

Did anyone else read the book _Chaos: Making a New Science_ by James
Gleick?  If you have you will no doubt remember the brilliant way
he described, and in my case introduced fractals to the reader. 
While interesting as a mathematical concept, they are also amazingly
beautiful to look at.  We have a photo gallery
of fractals generated by J.C. Sprott for you to feast your eyes
on.  Enjoy and if you haven’t read Chaos, put it on your
list. 

Fractals anyone?

In reply to Fractals anyone?

Fractal generation is so cool.  I’ve been facianted with with different types of computing and I think there may be “better” ways to deal with fractals, but man…they are just SO cool…

A few years ago Team Fractal at New Mexico Tech got to go on a NASA flight!

An open letter to Cisco:

In reply to Walking a fine line

Cisco, 

You announced today that you would buy Scientific-Atlanta,
the maker of set top cable boxes.  You talk about the acquisition
as a way to continue to grow your revenue and profits.  We
understand, Cisco, that this is what you need to say to please your
investors and conceal the development plans that must be a part of this
deal.  I hope that this doesn’t stop you for considering the
following ideas:

1. Please provide home and small businesses with cable internet with
   easy to use hardware based security features.  Some of us will
   take the time and spend the money to do what needs to be done to secure
   our home networks but so many don’t you can help and make money in the
   process. 
2. You own linksys and soon, Scientific Atlanta.  Can you work
   to create devices that easily combine home router and cable reception
   functionalities?  While you’re at it, please throw in the VoIP
   technology you’ve made so successful in the business world and
   Scientific-Atlanta’s DVR capabilities too.
3. You’re in a unique position to bring the computer, TV, and phone
   together – please help your soon-to-be new customers – the Cable
   Companies – to understand how important good service, robust
   functionality, and smart software interfaces are to a user
   experience. 

Perhaps you’re already working on this and if you are, please respond
to me (you can send me a private message from my profile page) and let
me know what is in the works. 

Best on your new endeavour,
Pete

P.S. – I’m sure the members of TechRepublic have other ideas on how you
can help lead the pretty clueless cable industry into this new
era.  Please listen to their thoughts too. 

An open letter to Cisco:

In reply to An open letter to Cisco:

How about making the darn set-top boxes available retail?  I had
digital cable for a one-year introductory special.  When the promo
period ended, the service was $5.00 monthly but rental on the S-A box
was $12.00!  I discontinued it; it would have been worth $5 to me,
but not $17 a month.  If I could buy the box for $100 – $150, it
would pay for itself in a year.

An open letter to Cisco:

In reply to An open letter to Cisco:

Check out the quote from Cisco’s press release:

“Scientific-Atlanta has platforms and technologies that enable scaling to
millions of subscribers quickly and easily. This, along with the Cisco IP Next
Generation Network architecture, will offer providers an open platform for
service differentiation, allowing them to move beyond video/IPTV to develop and
deliver a variety of integrated media services in the connected home.”

Black Monday. Your T3 has just become a virtual shopping mall

In reply to Walking a fine line

The Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States has long been called
“Black Friday.”  Millions of shoppers roll out of bed early, often
still stuffed from the feast consumed the day before, and go out buying
holiday presents at ungodly hours as retailers offer aggressive sales
to reward such insanity (can you tell I was home this past Friday
morning?) 

Now media outlets are calling the Monday after Thanksgiving “Black
Monday.”  Apparently, this is the largest ecommerce day of the
year.  Why?  Because corporate internet connections are
faster than home internet connections. 

The internet has long been credited with helping increase the
productivity of a workforce and, as a staff member of TechRepublic, I
hope that TechRepublic has been a part of this productivity
increase.  Never the less, access does not always bring
productivity.  Walk around your office today and check out all of
the networked printers and see how many receipts lay waiting for your
co-worker to pick up for their records. 

What the T3 provides, the T3 taketh away…

Black Monday. Your T3 has just become a virtual shopping mall

In reply to Black Monday. Your T3 has just become a virtual shopping mall

NPR was referring to today as “Cyber Monday.” I think they should stick with the “black” theme myself.

Marketing open source projects

In reply to Walking a fine line

Mozilla is hinting at a focused marketing push for Firefox in the near future and is truly taking the battle to Microsoft’s backyard: Marketing.

The challenge, retaining the “I found this browser and most of the
world doesn’t know about it yet” coolness while also getting the rest
of the world to know about it. Up to this point, Mozilla, Google,
and others have primarily depended on PR to get the word out on their
products. Clearly, the plan was a successful one for Google as it
is now a verb as well as a company name, and number. How will it
work for other open source projects?

Other open source marketing efforts are from vendors that are adding
value to the solution – Dell’s Linux Servers, IBM’s extensive work with
Linux in both hardware and software sides of their business, Linux
distros by RedHat and Novell/Suse that focus on support services in
addition to the code, Oracle and other enterprise application companies
touting their ability to run on Linux, etc.

So much of the open source “movement” is about defying traditional
marketing, business models, etc. I look forward to seeing what these
open source marketers come up with as they work to make the “best kept
secrets of tech” more widely known.

Good intentions and growing pains

In reply to Walking a fine line

I was drawn to today’s news coverage over some growing pains
experienced by Wikipedia. I won’t detail the issues here but you
can learn more at the related news story.
We at TechRepublic deal similar issues every day. We have
hundreds of user generated posts every day and thousands of users
depend on this information every day.

I look around the IT and Internet landscape right now and I see so many
projects with motivations similar to that of TechRepublic, Wikipedia,
Digg.com, and others. I love what I see; a belief in the
importance of collective knowledge, a focus on a diversity of
viewpoints, continual improvement, and an understanding of the
incredible power of the internet to unite diverse and disparate groups
through this simple and flexible medium.

Many of these services are stewarded by a (relatively) small group of
individuals with a shared belief in the goodness of the project.
As some of these projects (Wikipedia, Open Source Software, etc) become
used by more mainstream groups, we see more and more of these
challenges. How the more popular services respond to these
challenges impacts the entire set of similar but unrelated products
that are not as popular but founded on the same principles. I’m
watching closely.

TechRepublic recently soft-launched a wiki based product for the
express purpose of letting members respond, improve, and update our
editorial content. Take it for a test drive.
We realize that the challenges faced by sites like wikipedia are always
present on TechRepublic as well. Thank you to all of the
TechRepublic members that work so hard to make sure that the
information shared here is vetted, accurate, and useful.

Tech Headlines you won’t see in 2006

In reply to Walking a fine line

1.  Majority of businesses report that Spyware is under control.  Some
members I’ve spoken with claim that dealing with Spyware issues is
consuming 25% of their support team’s time.  This isn’t going away
anytime soon. 

2.  Microsoft buys Open Source Provider.  I’ve
seen some claim that Microsoft might buy RedHat Software or another
company providing a supported version of Linux.  Fat chance. 

3.  Businesses flock to Microsoft Vista.  The hardware requirements and continued security concerns will make adoption of Vista a slow process for most companies. 

4.  Legislators back revise regulatory requirements. 
Many of the regulatory requirements passed by US legislators have
created a tremendous amount of work for IT that is sapping companies of
their flexibility and creativity, not to mention their budgets. 
No one wants another Enron but most would agree that Sarbanes Oxley and
other regulations are addressing a problem but not providing a
cure.  Still, Congress won’t step on the political landmine that
would relax some of the more strict portions of these laws and create
more effective regulations. 

5.  Mega mergers yield huge gains for top vendors. Oracle
has impressively consumed the company formerly named Peoplesoft and
claims to be well on its way to the same end with Siebel. 
Nevertheless, I predict that these mergers as well as others
(Symantec/Veritas) will NOT drive significant growth for these
companies.  Prediction within a prediction – there will still be
more mega mergers on the way. 

Farewell Seti@home

In reply to Walking a fine line

Berkeley’s Seti@home program was discontinued on December 15th.
More accurately, it will no longer accept new participants. For
those not familiar with SETI
(Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) and the Seti@home project,
it was a project that used
volunteer’s idle CPU time to process radio data collected from space in
hopes of discovering intelligent life. I had, at various times,
donated computer time to the project. While I wouldn’t classify
myself as someone that is hugely confident that we will discover alien
intelligence in my lifetime, I certainly would like it if we did and
always enjoyed returning to my computer to see the Seti@home
screensaver chugging through the small amount of data that was pushed
to my computer. I’m also a really big fan of the way in which the under
funded
SETI project solved their computing problems and greatly increased the
amount of data they could process.

You can still donate unused CPU time to SETI@HOME but it is through a
new service called BOINC or Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network
Computing. In addition to the SETI project, they now have a
number of other projects that you can harness your computer to in hopes
of helping further scientific research.

I wanted to focus whatever small readership I have with this blog to this new service. Take a look for yourself.

Farewell Seti@home

In reply to Farewell Seti@home

‘Tis a sad day.  I always loved SETI@Home and I installed it on
various machines (including an entire computer lab when I was in
college…the Lead Sys Admin wanted to kill me, until he found out how
cool it was 😉 )

Good bye SETI and hello BOINC!

Farewell Seti@home

In reply to Farewell Seti@home

There is no ET.  Sorry.

Farewell Seti@home

In reply to Farewell Seti@home

I signed up for SETI@home when I first heard about it way back in 1999 (before the official start date). It was a great project and AFAIK originated the idea of distributed computing, at least for desktops. It was also an example of what smart, creative people can do when they are cut off from the federal teat.

The screen saver was great, looked like a display from the Enterprise D, and I’ve had it on a bunch of computers over the years, including at work. A couple of times some manager wondered what was going on but no one ever said no, especially after I explained it. Usually they just shook their heads and went away.

That BOINC SETI screen saver looks like something from After Dark and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to keep at it.

It’s a very worthy project however. It would be insane to think that in this whole incredible huge universe we were the only intelligent, technological civilization. Considering there is a bubble of space something like 160 light years across where anyone with our level of technology could see we are here I wouldn’t be surprised if we got an answer any day now…

ET we are here, and we are listening.

Jeff DeWitt

Farewell Seti@home

In reply to Farewell Seti@home

RexTech:

Haven’t you seen/read Contact?  Come on man!

If you mean that Aliens won’t likely have a light at the tip of their
finger (if they have fingers) and love Pepsi I will agree, ET doesn’t
exist.  Beyond that, way smarter people than me will have to talk
that through.  Is it certain?  No. I happen to believe that
the search is a good one and I really love how SETI has worked around a
logistic problems they’ve faced.  And the new BOINC is also
working on genetics problems and other things that are much easier to
wrap your head around.  Or are you going to tell me that genes are
a pipe dream too?

Farewell Seti@home

In reply to Farewell Seti@home

I’ve been running software from the Folding at Home project at Stanford
University on one of my computers for the last two years. Check it out
at

http://folding.stanford.edu

It seemed as though this project would be more likely to produce useful results than SETI.

Farewell Seti@home

In reply to Farewell Seti@home

as with stress junkie, I’ve been running the folding@home for a while myself.

for the same reason.

a side note on it:
folding@home actually improves the performance of windowsxp!!!!

Goodbye enterprise services?

In reply to Walking a fine line

The New Year is here and with it come a ton of predictions for 2006.  As in year’s past, I gobble these predictions up.  Over the years, however, I’ve taken to looking at the efforts of pundits, experts, etc more and more lightly.  Still, here are some of my favorite for the tech industry –

“The Enterprise Market will go away mostly, eventually, and surprisingly quickly” – Tom Forenski, ZDNet

Ultimately, I think he is right but I doubt very much that there will be anything resembling a quick departure for this market. 

“We’ll see a continued push to invest in clean technologies in 2006.”  – Mercury News

Let’s hope so. 

“FireFox overtakes Internet Explorer” – Lockergnome

Hmmm.  If IE 7 stalls or does not deliver it is possible but there are still so many people outside of tech that are very satisfied to use a browser.  ANY browser and Microsoft wins with all of those users. 

“Google will unveil its own low-price computer… that connects directly to the internet.”  – LA Times 

A really interesting turn.  The number of predictions around Google is tremendous.  Check out the following search result for 2006 Google Predictions to get a sense of the buzz around the company to watch in 2006. 

A pyramid of dependencies

In reply to Walking a fine line

I was talking with a member late last week when the conversation turned
down a familiar but fun path. The gist of the conversation was
this:

1. Companies that outsource their IT infrastructure rarely see costs or performance improve
2. Service providers that have landed a contract are rarely motivated to make problems disappear. Bill more hours!
3. Hardware and software vendors walk a fine line between looking to
   provide a bulletproof solution and looking to find a lifetime client
   that will regularly upgrade, buy additional product, etc.

It is not in anyone’s interest to make problems go away.

Up until this point, the conversation was fun but not all that
new. Then it took a turn. IT Professionals are guilty of
the same kind of behavior. Company policies, procedures, and
staff structures reinforce complexity and an unnecessary dependency on
IT.

“But most IT Professionals I know have way too much on their plates,” I said.

“And most IT professionals secretly love that and are very afraid of
the alternative,” was his response. Problem is that these arcane
structures and procedures are often the precursor to senior executives
investigating the outsourcing of IT…

Truth?

A pyramid of dependencies

In reply to A pyramid of dependencies

Some truth to it, but I won’t necessarily ascribe that to the motive you suggest.

If IT pros focus on new tech and in the process create complexity and dependancy, its not necessarily some dark motive of keeping their jobs intact. Though I have seen that happen, in most cases its more benign – it happens because consolidations and simplifications are not much fun, have no real incentive and require IT management to be better at strategic planning.

If IT pros created a strategic plan (approved by their management) it would no doubt have as one of their objectives, cost containment/reductions as one of the prime objectives. But its always more fun to delve into new technology. We don’t reward the project managers who reduce complexity, because its not sexy, and because we don’t see the real cost savings very often – we save money that ends up covering for some other projects overages.

We have too much on our plates, because in the end for most of us IT is a service role, and we don’t feel we can’t say no.

Outsourcers on the other hand have a vested interest in managing costs. They sign up for the status quo, and if you want to make improvements, thats where the profits come in – typically major changes cost more than it would internally.

 

James

 

 

 

 

 

Want a raise?

In reply to Walking a fine line

Then your next position should be focused on Voice/Wireless networking or Security according to Janco Associate’s 2006 IT Salary Survey. Some interesting findings but most of the findings seems to reinforce my perception of the job market in general.   Focus on some hot/emerging specialties, less salary growth at the executive and Managerial levels with very modest growth for IT staffers. 

 

Small business early adopters have much to gain

In reply to Walking a fine line

I’ve written before
about the opportunity vendors, especially software vendors, see with
smaller businesses.  Larger businesses have by and large selected
their business application software.  Vendors make good money on
upgrades and maintenance but the growth rate is not there to please
shareholders.  The solution for many vendors is a new focus on
smaller companies. 

Of course the business model is very different when you target small
businesses.  The level of pre and post sales support cannot be as
aggressive as with a multi-million dollar engagement with a very large
company.  That’s where being an early adopter helps.  

I was talking to a member working for a services company who share with
me the way vendors specializing in “enterprise” software are adapting
to the new business strategy.  At least one vendor, SAP, is taking
their best support people in each region and are seeking out aggressive
smaller companies looking to take advantage of these new software
services early.  They get all of the talent and support that a
Ford, Citigroup, etc. would get and become “regional reference
accounts” for higher margin lower support level accounts to
follow. 

If your company is seeing a real need for these software services, you may do well to get to the front of the line. 

Small business early adopters have much to gain

In reply to Small business early adopters have much to gain

I would disagree. The basic premise in the post is that TCO is only upfront license & customization costs, support and upgrade fees. Even if offered at a great discount, smaller companies need to be wary of real implementation costs as well as the business costs of any software solution. Even if there is a real need for such services, it would be best to work with players who understand the SMB segment, rather than with players who are coming to them because their target market has dried up.

Think Pad fun

In reply to Walking a fine line

I was speaking with someone last night about vendor upgrades cycles and
the number of bells and whistles that get bundled into new versions
that few people use.  I discovered one feature of my relatively
new ThinkPad laptop that I thought I’d share with those other ThinkPad
users out there.  If you hit the “Fn” key and the “PgUp” key
simultaneously, a small light will shine down on your keyboard. 

Try it out.  Know of any other cool ThinkPad tricks? 

Think Pad fun

In reply to Think Pad fun

Too funny as I have a T42p and never knew that feature existed.

Think Pad fun

In reply to Think Pad fun

On my Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet, the keyboard is labeled as if you can do
the same thing. However, because the Tablet PC doesn’t actually have
the light feature, an indicator appears on the screen with an X next to
it. Just interesting that they left the key combination there in the
first place and didn’t change the keyboard as well.

Think Pad fun

In reply to Think Pad fun

For some reason, ThinkPad does not have the Microsoft Windows key. One useful way of using this key is  pressing this key and letter E together – it will launch My Computer.

To configure this key, press the Access IBM button.Click on Configure, Map keys to function,Tick Enable key assignment. Look out for the key that is assigned to Windows(R) key. If preferred, you can change it to another key.

Try it if you have not done so.

Chit Hiong (Singapore)

Think Pad fun

In reply to Think Pad fun

You know the funny thing about the light situation with me is, one day someone pointed it out to me and said hey thats cool.  Well I could not figure out how to turn it off so I restarted my computer and it went out, then one day I just looked at the key board and bamm…. there it was the way to turn it back on.  I have had my think pad for about two years now and I just discovered it. 🙂

Think Pad fun

In reply to Think Pad fun

Duh! Read the instructions. That said, after having a T41 for a while, I too was in the dark except I faintly remembered there was a light. Sure enough it’s in the center of the top rim of the screen. Took me a trip to ibm.com and a drill down to discover the clearly marked key!

I’ll bet there’s a bunch of undocumented things that can be done with most laptops. Be interesting to see if anyone has found any.

Trajmag

Think Pad fun

In reply to Think Pad fun

sounds like someone needs a trip to http://www.eeggs.com.  If I had the time, I’d go there and check it out, but I’m lazy so I won’t.  Happy hunting!!

Think Pad fun

In reply to Think Pad fun

To view and re-define keyboard combinations on a ThinkPad, just call up the Keyboard Customiser Utility, which can be found at Thinkpad >> ThinkPad Utilities under all programs. This will allow you to define a combination for the missing windows key, etc. The other way to find out about your ThinkPad is to just hit the ThinkPad button to bring up ‘Access ThinkPad’.

And no, I’m not a Lenovo salesman, I just manage a small fleet of these things!

Think Pad fun

In reply to Think Pad fun

Where I work overlooks a lake.  Due to FDA approval of a medical system, we have to use some IBM thinkpads.  The best trick that I’ll be able to do is to duct tape them all together, attach them to a rope and use them as a boat anchor.  Biggest pieces of junk that I’ve ever had the misfortune to use.

The wireless works great with all our other laptops, these, it keeps dropping.  They won’t hold a charge, the screen will just blacks out randomly and for no reason, and they like to reboot themselves for no obvious reason.  We’ve rebuilt them multiple times, had to send the whole lot back due to faulty components, and they were twice as expensive as our standard laptops.  Hate them, hate them, hate them…  but I’m not bitter (insert sarcasm here).

I ask again, is your business ready?

In reply to Walking a fine line

I live and work in New York.  Like so many New Yorkers, I have a pretty significant train ride to get to work.  This weekend we had 2 ft. of snow fall on the area and my commuter train did not run all day on Monday.  No big deal for me.  I transferred my calls to my home office, plugged into all the systems I needed via VPN, and no one was the wiser. 

This morning I was reminded of how much of a luxury this is.  People around me on the train were talking about three hour commutes by car only to find that there were no parking spots in New York City because so many spaces were filled with snow.  I realize that many people simply cannot work from home.  If you are a car salesman, you kind of need to be by the cars.  But most of the people on my train spend most of their day on the phone in front of a computer.  When will businesses recognize the benefit of giving people the option?  Even if only for emergencies. 

To me, the need for businesses to prepare for extreme situations is separate from the argument around whether people should be allowed to work from home on a regular basis.  With the prospect of a major flu epidemic, terrorist activity, as well as the always present risk of (insert local natural disaster here) it seems like only good business sense.  Add to that the moral obligation of not placing employees in situations where they take unnecessary risks (like driving on very slippery roads)…

Is your business ready? 

I ask again, is your business ready?

In reply to I ask again, is your business ready?

Separate Short-Term From Long-Term

I would take care not to confuse short-term situations where people can be expected to quickly return to their workplace from long-term situations where they may not.  The planning (i.e. Continuity of Operations) is far different for the latter case than for the former.  Confusing the issues hinders rather than helps the acceptance of telecommuting for normal operation.

For short-term interruptions, such as the snowfall in New York, I would contend that the most effective approach would be to simply close the office.  This reduces the burden on the employees, admits that productivity is vastly decreased, and gives the infrastructure time to recover before dealing with a mass of people.

For longer-term interruptions, such as the flooding in New Orelans, one needs to be able to reconstruct corporate systems and data, not just provide access to what currently exists.  Telecommuting may be part of the answer, but first workers will need some place to telecommute to.

My intent is to merely indicate why I think the original post is an ineffective argument for day-to-day telecommuting and does not reflect on the underlying value of telecommuting.  Stetching things too far trivializes the case instead of enhancing it.

 

Oh good, I don’t have to worry about managing my passwords anymore!

In reply to Walking a fine line

Bill Gate opened the RSA conference with an announcement that Vista
will solve password issues by significantly improving and simplifying
authentication on clients running Vista. 

Phew!  Nothing left to worry about!  The world’s computer systems will work together with the launch of Vista! 

My friend at ADP manages upwards of 20 unique passwords which change on
varying schedules.  ADP is the largest payroll company in the
world and my friend theoretically has access to payroll information for
the entire Northeast corridor of the United States.  

Will ADP or other companies (especially public companies required to
pass Sarbanes Oxley audits) take Gates up on this new feature?  I
have my doubts. 

Oh good, I don’t have to worry about managing my passwords anymore!

In reply to Oh good, I don’t have to worry about managing my passwords anymore!

Pretty sure ADP does NOT use Windows servers for running or storing payroll data. They have Windows based software clients.

 

There have been Single Sign On solutions for years. I first looked at them about 10 years ago. They are convenient, but they rely on an encrypyted file on the local PC to store the data. With relatively insecure PCs, this didn’t make much sense.

 

James

Marketing 101 – the PR intercept

In reply to Walking a fine line

Intel starts the Intel Developer’s Forum (IDF) today in San Francisco. So, taking a page out of Intel’s marketing playbook, AMD introduces three new models. Clearly AMD is challenging Intel in a way that it hasn’t been able to in the past. And the challenge is providing corporate customers with even more value and innovation that ever before. Look for more from Intel as the week progresses.

Everyone loves a David and Goliath story. And frankly, I’m not all that concerned about who “wins.” I’m pleased that major vendors are facing significant challenges that force them to respond to their customers and competitor’s time lines instead of their own.

Is 2006 the year of a resurgent Corel to challenge Microsoft Office? Is there are new search provider about to emerge and challenge Google?

A new voice on TechRepublic

In reply to Walking a fine line

Please join me in welcoming George Ou to the TechRepublic staff. George joins us as TechRepublic’s Technical Director. This is a new position that was created to increase the amount of technical content on TechRepublic and to add to the technical discussions already taking place on TechRepublic.

Next week you will start seeing George’s blog on the site but I wanted to point to his first article on the site in his new position. Before joining TechRepublic, George was a consultant for a major technology firm specializing in the optimization of network environments. He was also a part-time blogger for our sister size ZDNet. You can read some recent blog post here.

Stay tuned and welcome George!

The Vista delay

In reply to Walking a fine line

Microsoft’s announcement of delays with Windows Vista Consumer yesterday created a lot of buzz in the marketplace. Beyond the short term financial hit to Microsoft (it will be interesting to see the effect on Microsoft stock today) there are future repercussions to the marketplace. Since the delay only effects the shipment of consumer versions of Vista, this could be an opening for a holiday push from Apple and others. Increasingly, consumers are relying on internet based applications that Mac can easily support. Could Apple come forward with aggressive pricing/bundling that could make new Mactel boxes the choice of consumers? Microsoft sure is keeping 2006 interesting.

On the business front, there is a silver lining for Microsoft. The delay reinforces Microsoft’s seriousness to get this right. TechRepublic’s Jason Hiner talks more about this in his blog on the topic here. As long as they get it right, no business will see these delays as an issue. Businesses demand stronger security and manageability. Vista carries that promise and it seems the only businesses that are wanting Vista NOW are the PC manufacturer.

As an aside, the engineering and product teams at TechRepublic are talking a great deal about agile development and we’re working hard to get our platforms and procedures to a state where this kind of development much easier sustain. I watch the Vista saga and wonder how much longer mega development projects will continue. Bill Gates has openly discussed how Vista could be Microsoft’s last major OS. Of course there will continue to be major applications built for businesses but the lessons learned from years and years of major software initiatives falling short are prompting really interesting changes in the marketplace. Of course we’d miss the huge launch with rock stars, every media outlet in the world, etc but I’m sure we’d find other ways to stay entertained.

A blast from the past

In reply to Walking a fine line

Spoke with a member today that started her career working for a reseller in the 1980s.  She worked in sales/engineering and she fondly recounted her first sale:  

AT Computer
10 MB of storage!  
Top of the line graphics card

Ticket price = $15,000

I asked her what her car cost.  Toyota Tercel, sticker price was around $5,000.  

Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

In reply to Walking a fine line

The New York Times published an interesting article on the challenges Microsoft engineers face with the Vista launch.   Apparently, Vista’s code base is significantly larger than XP’s.  Much of the code bloat is done to enable backward compatibility with both hardware and software.  

Take a look at the article.  One quote really stuck with me:

“Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes
products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security
challenges and it causes end-user and administrator frustration.”  – Ray Ozzie, Microsoft CTO

At some point, Microsoft is going to have to rip off the band aid and draw a line in the sand.  Apple regularly releases new operating systems and often makes the hardware requirements very stringent, leaving older customers with little choice but to live with a legacy OS or buy a new system.  

TechRepublic members are mulling over the relevance of Vista for their business.  Join the discussion here.

Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

In reply to Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

Not in my head, I can’t remember all that, and I don’t believe anyone else can either. And that’s the problem, just how can anybody be able to reconize some bad code that might sneek in somewhere? But also, How can people expect any company, even MicroSoft to Build and Market a system that will (must) work with everything ever produced?

Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista

In reply to Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

I’d agree with your opinion if it was correct that Mcrosoftt maintains compatibility with all the technology of the past. But it isn’t. Who can name all the applications written to Win9x platform, which won’t run on 2000/XP? Microsoft has never been really reluctant to draw that line. But while those lines meant headaches for everyone who had to ensure that his applications and/or hardware stayed in service, Microsoft still has lots of ancient code under its own covers, well preserved from those times, which really causes those headaches. And the reason is simply avoiding cost for any major rewrite as long as it doesn’t add a shiny feature.

Just think of that recent GDI vulnerability once introduced to alllow cancellation of print jobs, nowadays once again very useful for malware to embed malicious code in wmf files (!!).

Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

In reply to Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

In reference to the comment about old Windows 9x apps not running on Windows XP, I recently discovered the Compatibility tab in the properties dialog for shortcuts or EXE files, that allows you to tell XP to run an app in Windows 98/ME, or even Windows 95, compatibility mode. According to some limited web research I did on this, it does make a lot of old apps (like games etc.) run fine on Windows XP.

Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

In reply to Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

By comparison, the Linux kernel contains about 5.7M lines of code. Considering the miniscule sizes of the shells, utilities, and servers necessary to make a functional OS, I’d have to guess that all told a fully functional GNU/Linux OS would come in at under 10M lines of code. Because of the modular nature of all this stuff, though, nobody has to deal with complexity of software on that scale: the biggest single integrated piece is the kernel.

On the other hand, if you start adding in all the software that’s made available to you for free with a major distribution, you’re looking at a lot more code. The Debian distribution, last I checked, makes software equivalent to more than 55M lines of code available to you, free of charge. Think of the astronomical amounts of money expended by Microsoft to get to this 50M+ lines of code operating system, and the fact that it’s one massive, tightly integrated, monolithic beast that must now be maintained, and provides very little functionality beyond the base OS.

It’s not about drawing a line in the sand regarding backward compatibility at all. It’s about making the tough decision to improve on what has already been written rather than merely adding to it.

Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista

In reply to Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

Probably one of the few times I’ve agreed with someone from MS on the technical front. However what makes the comment strange is that the level of complexity was engineered into the system to enhance the business.

As a for instance in what way did integrating IE into the OS reduce the complexity of the system. Not at all in my technical opinion, businesswise however it was a masterstroke. Killed every competing non freeware browser on the spot for the windows platform.

I’ve never seen the source for windows but taking a wild stab in the dark, I’d say that the code is approaching awful.
It exhibits all the signs of a large body of code, barely refactored , ‘enhanced’ with sales oriented production driven amendments, implemented with the “can’t do it right let’s bodge it syndrome”. The visible interdependancies in the deliverables are mind boggling, at source level it must be truly horrendous.

Complexity in software occurs for several reasons but the worst one to deal with is a multiplicity of quick fixes, particularly when you start layering them and then cross referencing them. At some point in every design for a software function with real longevity, where you haven’t been extensivley refactoring, you have no choice but to throw almost everything you’ve done in the bin and start again. 50,000,000 lines of code is isn’t the problem, it’s the fact that 25,000,000 reference the other 25,000,000.

Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

In reply to Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

Tony, we call that “cruft”. I think you know that, though.

Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

In reply to Throwing in the virtual kitchen sink… Vista’s 50 Million lines of code

I agree in general with Tony and apotheon. In specific terms Tony’s comment that “the level of complexity was engineered into the system to enhance the business”, is accurate. But the example of the Debian distribution with a total code line count similar to Windows when you add in all the optional packages along with the kernel shows is that Microsoft’s major mistake was not the integration of specific functionality like IE into Windows but adding functionality to the code in a monolithic way.

Since the Windows code is proprietary, there could have been no good reason from a design standpoint not to build the software in a modular way. Internet Explorer could have been built as a module that was plugged into the Windows kernel that didn’t allow for the enduser to remove it. My understanding (and I’ve never worked at MS and don’t claim to be a Windows expert) is that in the case of IE specifically, MS built it into the core/kernel/whatever so they could claim that IE was an important part of the OS rather than just another program they were giving away to kill the competition. Now that business decision is coming back to bite them in the butt in the form of extreme difficulty in improving the security of the Windows OS. I don’t know if MS’s architects decided that since they were going to integrate IE they might as well throw everything else into the kernel as well, but that is what it seems like.

Oracle Linux?

In reply to Walking a fine line

News reports today cite Larry Ellison discussing the purchase of a Linux provider.  Is this the next wave of consolidation?  The other logical vendors that could be in the same market are Sun and IBM.  Both organizations have strong and extensive software support organizations as well as consulting businesses.  Given the support both IBM and, more recently, Sun, has provided the open source software community we are in for an interesting ride.  Both IBM and Sun have also been in the OS business for a long time.  

While unlikely, what about HP or Dell getting into the game?  Dell’s Linux business is growing rapidly and they are clearly interested in expanding their revenue generation capabilities.  Linux is particularly attractive for vendors looking outside the US for new growth opportunities.  China, India, and parts of Europe are aggressively turning to Linux for both server and desktop environments.  

Lots of flanks to be protected and lots of really powerful players circling.  Novell?  Red Hat?  

Oracle Linux?

In reply to Oracle Linux?

Oracle + Linux + Hardware Vendor

I just don’t see Oracle as a low cost Linux vendor competing with Red Hat et al.  These appear to be disparate market niches.  An interesting combination, however, would be if they added a hardware vendor to the mix.

I think a strong case could be made for Oracle to provide a database appliance; provide the hardware platform(s), operating system, and database software as a product.  This would be something that could be dropped into the server room, have a custom schema applied, and be ready to go.  From a purchasing and support perspective, having everything installed, configured, and supported by one company under a single agreement would be a strong selling point.

For Dell, I think a joint marketing agreement would be a better approach than a purchase of a Linux supplier.  I feel the technical skills are too different to expect any cost reduction through an acquisition or merger and the risk of further splintering the Linux market (like the Unix market before it) are too great.

The best fit for a Linux provider would probably be a strong Unix provider, perhaps Sun or Apple.  I think there could be some cost savings in shedding the proprietary Unix code and they could then concentrate on hardware support and application development.

 

Dell has parts they can’t sell?

In reply to Walking a fine line

A recent news.com article caught my eye. OK, I thought. Dell wants share so they are firing a quick shot across the bow to get people to purchase now. Consumers sometimes need a nudge and this can be a very effective tool to push people towards a purchase.

But wait, I kept reading:

“The price cuts in part stem from discounts on components. Excess
inventories of processors and other parts are causing manufacturers and
distributors to cut prices to get rid of inventories. Similar hot-spot
deals will likely pop up at retailers and the Web sites of direct PC
sellers over the next few weeks, if history is any guide.”

Dell has excess inventory? The “just in time” leader has inventory rotting on the shelf? I know, I know. Much of the Dell story is myth. Of course they don’t purchase components as you buy them. “Build to order” only goes so far and Dell has made it their mission to design their advertising, web sites, and pricing models to move those components they have ordered in volume. Perhaps more business school case studies have focused on the Dell story than any other business in the past 25 years. Is this a hiccup or a sign that the bloom is off this rose?

How are vpns like Britney Spears?

In reply to Walking a fine line

My friend (and TechRepublic and ZDNet’s lead engineer) John Potter showed me a link to Google Trends today. From Google Labs, Google Trends shows the search trending over time for selected keywords. If you have a light work day and like these kinds of things, you can easily spend an hour or more with this.

If I’m Britney Spears’ agent, I’m concerned. If I’m a VPN vendor or a consultant specializing in VPNs, I’m feeling pretty good about now.

Why Britney? With any search term tool, I usually use “Britney Spears” as my test case. At one point, I read that this was pretty consistently the most popular search term on the web. I doubt she is any longer since the search term “VPN” is almost as popular at “Britney Spears” according to Google’s new tool. (Google conveniently does not include any indication of overall volume for any keyword search so who knows what the most popular term on Google really is.)

In the image below – Britney Spears is represented by the red lines and VPN by the blue.

So, if this kind of this is your bag, have some fun. I’m fascinated to see where Google goes with this kind of information.

How are vpns like Britney Spears?

In reply to How are vpns like Britney Spears?

Since the “News Volume” graphs so closely mirror each other (I know it is not in absolute number), I would be tempted to beleive that it would indicate that a relatively stable percentage of articles about Britney Spears are also about VPNs. Maybe she bought Cisco with the proceeds from her last album?

J.Ja

How are vpns like Britney Spears?

In reply to How are vpns like Britney Spears?

They both have interesting “peaks?”

Oh man am I ever gonna get it for that one from the ladies..haha.

 

How are vpns like Britney Spears?

In reply to How are vpns like Britney Spears?

Perhaps it’s a sign that Britney needs to take her network virtually private.

Some thoughts upon losing internet access yesterday

In reply to Walking a fine line

My home office internet connection went down yesterday. For three hours (or so) my home was without our Optimum Online super charged internet connection. During those three hours, I was made aware of many things about my life that have changed since I found the internet in 1993:

• My inability to do work without the internet. My home office uses VoIP so no calls, most of the data I had planned to examine was housed online – IM, e-mail, our corporate intranet, etc. ALL GONE! I ended up doing some expense reports – it is amazing how quickly I can do them without any interruptions.
• My daughter, now 5 and 1/2, was clearly aware of the crisis. In an effort to participate in the drama, she came up to me while I was on hold with our service provider and asked “which is better Daddy, Yahoo or Google?” She was unaware that the internet could go out.
• From my years of being a non-IT guy working on TechRepublic, I’ve become keenly conscious of how my helpful suggestions to tech support may not be that helpful. Not doing this might be the most difficult task I faced in the past month. I did pretty well. The tech support guy on the other end did great (thanks James!) It is difficult to deal with 90 second silent periods while on the phone. My instincts were to provide more color, ask about the systems they used, etc. I held my tongue and I’m a better man for it.
• I had a renewed appreciation for Justin James soapbox post regarding web-based apps.
• Finally, I still have a security blanket (of sorts) – my Treo 650. It took me a few minutes but I quickly realized that I was not cut-off, simply slowed down. The relief! If I could only get a VPN connection…

In the end, service was returned, it felt even faster than usual, and calm returned to the house.

Some thoughts upon loosing internet access yesterday

In reply to Some thoughts upon losing internet access yesterday

Have you seen the movie “Cast Away”? That’s about how I feel whenever the Internet goes down. Sometimes it actually bothers me that I feel like, but I usually just shrug off that feeling and go back to flipping through messages on my Treo.

Some thoughts upon losing internet access yesterday

In reply to Some thoughts upon losing internet access yesterday

This is how dependent I am on the internet (it’s kind of sad really).

I couldn’t even figure out how to find a theater/time for a movie I wanted to watch in the newspaper.  It’s been so long since I looked a movie up in the paper that I forgot how to do it.  I looked at the paper and just thought, “old technology isn’t very user-friendly” and proceeded to get online to check at fandango.com.

Stop the bad power points!

In reply to Walking a fine line

A recent blog post by George Ou got me started on a brief rant over bad Power Point presentations.  I thought I’d continue the rant here.  

First off,
I have no issues with Power Point. In
fact, I like Power Point a great deal… 

…when done
well.

But nothing
is worse that a meeting with BAD power point.
Here are my pet peeves.

• Power Point slides with more
  than 50 words. If you need to
  squeeze a lot of information for a presentation, create a hand out, or
  better yet just share the idea verbally.
  That is why you are presenting!
• Use of tiny fonts. This goes
  hand in hand with my previous point.
  Too much text demands that the font size is too small to read in
  most group settings where a projector is used. Small fonts are left for sourcing of
  material, PERIOD. How many times
  have you been in a meeting where the focus in the room shifts from the
  presenter/speaker to the simple act of READING THE SLIDE!
• Power Points are not scripts. Worse
  still are the cases where the presenters just read from the slide. I?m
  quite proud of the fact that I read pretty well myself, thank you, I came
  to the presentation to encounter new ideas in an interactive setting or to
  hear someone present ideas to a larger group verbally. The power point is the visual support to
  this not the script.
• Bad animation. It can be useful to introduce points one
  at a time and animation helps you do this in a clear and easy manner. But don?t have things flying all over
  the place all the time. Just don?t,
  ok?
• Sound files. I once sat through a day of
  presentations all tied to a meeting theme (another blog perhaps, no themed
  meetings please?) Anyway, the theme was football and there were whistles,
  and crowd noises, etc. TIED TO
  USELESS ANIMATION. For the love of
  all that is good in this world.
  Just don?t do that. I beg
  you. Use a sound or video file to
  display a point, that is very effective and can work really well. But if
  the sound doesn?t support the information you need to convey, leave it out.
• Meetings of 2 or 3 people with
  power point. Bring in a visual if
  you need it but power point presentations are by and large best used with
  a group.
• If you?re giving a presentation
  with power point, prepare by practicing the presentation. Nothing worse than a presenter reading
  through the presentation to remind them of what they are to talk about. Big downer.
• Power point for the sake of
  power point. Building good presentations
  take a ton of time and it is often time wasted. A good presentation can be made better
  with power point but so often, power point sucks whatever value might have come
  from the meeting.

Thanks, I feel better.

Stop the bad power points!

In reply to Stop the bad power points!

The last time this was addressed, in Toni’s Do your part: Prevent PowerPoint abuse, it got quite a few amens.

My nails-on-blackboard component: MS clip art. Too cute, hackneyed, dull.

Stop the bad power points!

In reply to Stop the bad power points!

Amen and thank you for the valuable tips. Anyone considering coming within 10 feet of a PPT presentation, please heed this advice and have mercy on those who have to sit through these hour-long presentations. With your permission I’d like to dub this the 10 commandments of PPT. Since you have 8 here, I’d like to round out the last two with #9-Don’t use the frillly, swirly, cursive fonts- save those for the wedding invitations and #10 it is never okay to use the theme song from “Rocky” in a PPT. Sadly I had to witness that one in person. :/  

Incidentally, I loved commandments 4 and 5 on bad animation and sound files. “For the love of all that is good in this world. Just don?t do that” — laugh-out-loud good times!

 

Stop the bad power points!

In reply to Stop the bad power points!

The most dangerous thing in the U.S. Army is a 2nd Lieutenant with a map and a compass.

The second most dangerous thing is a staff officer with Powerpoint and a projector.  I sat through a battle plan one day where the operations major had a slew of graphics every time the slide changed.  The background graphic was a map of the battlefield.  When the slide changed, little tanks toddled out from each side and fired at each other.  Small jets flew across the top of the frame and dropped bombs.  This went on for 10 – 30 seconds EVERY TIME the slide changed, with increasing numbers of weapons systems as the presentation / battle progressed.  These graphics did not show the actual flow of the battle across the map, they were there only to introduce each new slide.

Rumor has it active duty staff officers are rated on their ability to use PowerPoint.  “Use” in this case is apparently defined as the amount of features you can cram in, not as the effective presentation of information.

Stop the bad power points!

In reply to Stop the bad power points!

Wow, that story does not help me feel good about military leadership!  Think about how much time was spent building that animation into the presentation that could have been spent planning for the battle or making the session/class better.  It strikes me that power point is not unlike a lot of development packages.  Just because a package CAN do somethting doesn’t mean it should.  I haven’t seen the Office 12 version of PPT but I’m afraid that there will be more distractions with the latest version.  

Stop the bad power points!

In reply to Stop the bad power points!

So to sum it all up, the Power Point slides are each only a list of the highlights for that section of a presentation, and should only contain features relevant to the presentation.

I can’t argue against that 🙂

A presentation on building a bridge or tunnel, to sell the project, can include a video clip of the proposed construction methods, as well as visual displays of the completed design. A highlighting used to indicated specific features that will be detailed in the verbal presentation as they are being presented, like a safety feature in a tunnel while explaining the ways safety was handled for the tunnel.

Stop the bad power points!

In reply to Stop the bad power points!

Amen to all comments so far, and here’s one it took me too long to learn, but i don’t think anyone else has figured out….

if you’re going to be presenting to a large group in a large room… where the back row is more than maybe 20-30 feet from the screen, go to the room, sit in the back row, and hold up your hands to frame the screen at an arm’s length.  email me at plusaf@plusaf.com if that doesn’t make sense to you.  i’ll elaborate individually.

the point is:  from 20 feet away or 50 or whatever, to the eye of the viewer, the screen, at an arm’s length, looks like a rectangle that may be as little as 3″ by 4″ !!!!!

how can you tell if your slide will be legible?  easy:  sitting at your comfortable desk, designing your powerpoint presentation, position the screen at arm’s-length from your face.  then zoom the image so that it’s just 3″ by 4″, or whatever size you determined before in the actual room, on the pc screen in front of you. !!!

if you have trouble reading the fine print, or the fonts look all squishy when you look at it that way, that’s how it will look to your audience!   this technique works for all presentations.   force the size of the slide to be as small as it will look to your “worst-case seating” viewer, and adjust fonts, sizing, and number of words on the slide accordingly.

anything less is cruel and inhuman punishment, and you should be convicted under the Geneva Conventions…

🙂

alan falk
Raleigh, NC. 
after about 35 years or so of presenting.

Stop the bad power points!

In reply to Stop the bad power points!

A few other pointers:

1. Don’t use the default “Times” font. It’s designed for readability, not legibility, and the latter is what you need when you’re sitting in the back of the big room. Use Arial or Tahoma. Arial has true italics but Tahoma is bolder. Use what fits the need.

2. In a bright room use a light-colored background with black or blue type, in a dark room use a dark blue background with white or yellow type. Avoid green type—it doesn’t have much contrast. And a purplish-red looks better than a plain red if you must use red for emphasis. Don’t overuse CAPITALS, “words” in “quotes” or italics.

3. If you have more than two levels of bullets/sub-bullets you need to re-think your material. Try moving your first bullet up to the headline, make your headline a section head, etc. And if you must have a two-line headline try reducing one in size to subordinate it. Suggest 28pt. type over 36pt type.

4. Use the default slide layouts and text boxes. As stated in the main article, 6 lines of type MAX per slide, not including headline. If it won’t fit, make it two slides…believe me, it’s better than a slide filled with small type. Listen for the audience groan if you put one of those onscreen. Put the tiny type in the script… or in the handouts. You can also hide those slides and bring them out during Q&A, if needed.

5. The best use for animation is to build a complicated graphic –like a network diagram– in stages. Don’t decorate a presentation with animation.

6. I tell my clients, “No clip art or clip photos, period.” If you want funny, tell a joke. If you need a photograph of a specific inventory item, facility, or person, fine. But a picture of a generic computer on a slide about computers is redundant and insults the audience’s intelligence. And unless you have an illustrator on staff, your clipart styles won’t match and your slides will look thrown-together. Also, you don’t want to get in copyright trouble by lifting content off the web without regard to ownership. Keep your slides plain and simple. YOU should be the most dynamic thing in the room.

7. If you’ve repeated a headline more than twice, promote it to a section head. If you repeat an introductory phrase twice,  promote it to a higher-level bullet. Or remove it… it’s probably unnecessary.

8. Have a neutral party look over your presentation and listen to your speech. You’ll be surprised at what they’ll find. Thanks for listening and may all your presentations be short, sweet and to the point!

–David (Graphics team lead in an IT services firm)

Stop the bad power points!

In reply to Stop the bad power points!

When I was a college student, I worked for the IT department in the computer labs. As a student employee, I was allowed to sit in on the professional staff training sessions held in the labs. The best piece of advice I ever picked up about Power Point was to create the slides on a plain white background with no transitions or animation. When the entire slide show is finished, then you go back and add backgrounds and, if necessary, animation and transitions.  That way the majority of your time is spent creating the meat of your presentation and not on the cutesy stuff that most people get carried away with.

Stop the bad power points!

In reply to Stop the bad power points!

I recently saw a PowerPoint slide regarding a local animal shelter benefit.

One slide, and it was for a printed handout.

Can anyone say MS Publisher?

Dell to use AMD chips in servers

In reply to Walking a fine line

This isn’t confirmed but The Register is reporting that Dell will announce plans to use Opteron chips in upcoming server products.

In other news, the devil is reporting a cool front in Hell and reports of pigs flying are coming in from across the world.

Even a year ago, this seemed preposterous. I can’t say it is true but it is certainly within the realm of belief today. More news as it is confirmed or denied.

[EDIT] This has been confirmed by News.com.

Dell to use AMD chips in servers

In reply to Dell to use AMD chips in servers

Dell has long used its strategic relationship with Intel as a large
competitive hammer to beat down prices on PCs. Rumors long had it that
Intel was paying Dell for exclusive rights and helping them with
marketing with the whole Intel Inside deal. While HP, Compaq, IBM and
others were flirting with AMD CPUs even back in the 586 and K6 days,
Dell stayed true to Intel.

I think this is all due to the fact that Intel shot themselves in the
foot with the push to Itanium. By trying to make a forced march to a
64-bit platform that wasn’t fully backward compatible, they just opened
the door wide to AMD and said “Come on in”. AMD’s share has been
growing and if it had larger chip capacity, I bet it would take even
more share from Intel at this point.  AMD has been running circles
around Intel for the last couple of years and Dell has been suffering
because of it. Dell didn’t have much choice.  

A note to Phishers everywhere – use spell check!

In reply to Walking a fine line

I received this e-mail last night.  I don’t have an account at Chase so I knew it was a Phishing attempt.  Now, I am a notoriously bad speller so I can sympathize but really… This is bad.  

Here is the e-mail copy:
——————————————————————————————————————-

Dear client
of Chase Bank,
Technical services of
the Chase Bank are carrying out a planned software upgrade. We earnestly ask you
to visit the following link to start the procedure of confirmation on customers
data.
To get started,
please click the link below:

[LINK DELETED JUST BECAUSE IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA]

This instruction has
been sent to all bank customers and is obligatory to
fallow.
Thank
you,

Customers Support
Service.

———————————————————————————

I know it is reasonably cheap to send e-mail.  Especially cheap when you don’t worry about ethical and legal regulations around the collection of e-mail addresses.  Never the less, you still have to create the e-mail, the dummy site where you harvest the information and you need to take the risk of getting caught stealing information and defrauding customers.  You’d think with all of that you would at least spell FOLLOW correctly.  

A note to Phishers everywhere – use spell check!

In reply to A note to Phishers everywhere – use spell check!

This is my favorite part: “We earnestly ask you…”

When is the last time a professional organization–that wasn’t fundraising–used persuasive language like that to encourage action? It reeks of phishing.

Bad business plan for the day…

In reply to Walking a fine line

For a while I have been feeling like we might be approaching the “irrational exuberance” of the late 1990’s again. The one consolation has been that this time around, most of the new web sites and businesses appearing on the scene have carefully considered and developed business plans. And then I saw thise-mail sent to a friend:

——————————————————————————————————–

Dear ———-:

I thought you may be interested to learn about an
innovative new website called ?The Casual Courier? (http://www.casualcourier.com). The company
has developed an original new way to deliver packages by matching people with
items to send with everyday travelers who are willing to be couriers. The
website recently went live and is already generating excellent feedback from
users around the world.

If you?d like to set up interview with company founders,
please be in touch.

—————————————————————————————————————

I’m still waiting to discover the joke here, as I feel it really must be a joke…. Right? Anyone out there that can confirm that this is a joke?

If I see any “casualcourier” labeled packages on my next flight I will think twice about boarding the flight. Does the phrase “if anyone unknown to you asks you to carry a package for them…” mean anything to this business?

TCC (that’s The Casual Courier” in case you were wondering) addresses this in their FAQ section:

“How do I know if the contents of
the package are prohibited or illegal?

TCC suggests that
couriers thoroughly examine the package contents before accepting it for
delivery. For a list of
permitted/prohibited items please visit TSA?s official website”

Well, I’m at a loss. Would a business want their casual courier inspecting the item they absolutely, positively have to rush ship? Given the impact on terrorism on travel and shipping, would this business likely fly under the regulatory radar as if it found success? Wouldn’t that more intense scrutiny eliminate much of the cost savings? Am I to trust that an untrained Casual Courier examined the item thoroughly enough to really determine the safety and legality of the item? I could go on.

Is this the beginning of the end people?

Bad business plan for the day…

In reply to Bad business plan for the day…

Actually, this is nothing new. Since (easily) the early 1990s I’ve seen reports of such companies, usually in magazines such as Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, that enable willing travelers to fly on short notice in exchange for a slashed-to-the-bone fare. Granted, a significant percentage of courier-delivered packages may be nothing more than documents (again, from a time when people didn’t quite trust the internet for document delivery), but, yes, the time of the part-time ‘casual courier’ is long gone.

Check out our new software directory – now in beta

In reply to Walking a fine line

I’m really happy to point TechRepublic members to the beta version our new Software directory.  It contains roughly 50,000 software files – mostly trialware and freeware.  Software for business and personal use can be found within the directory and we hope it becomes a regular source of research and diversion for TechRepublic members.  Some areas of potential interest include:

Windows management tools

Games for Windows

Windows components and libraries

Software for Mobile Devices of all flavors

Database software

We’re excited to have this at this point but we realize there are still many things to be addressed.  Any feedback you have to offer, please share it with us here and I hope you find something you like!  Thanks in advance.  

Check out our new software directory – now in beta

In reply to Check out our new software directory – now in beta

I was a bit surprised at how little Oracle software you have in the directory.  I mean actual software-from-Oracle.  I did a search for the word “Oracle” and of the 300-or-so results only three or four were from Oracle itself.  That’s surprising given that almost all their software is available for eval download off their OTN site (Oracle Technology Network, otn.oracle.com).

Check out our new software directory – now in beta

In reply to Check out our new software directory – now in beta

Hi Peter

I would like, in my workspace, a method to add a small text file for each of my contacts.

Regards

\Gunnar Klevedal

[Author]

Replies