deal architect

Cardboard Software

A few years ago CA ran an ad campaign around a cardboard software salesman - the unresponsive, static type.

Jevon McDonald, a fellow EI, reports he was at a conference recently where 2 vendors were running static HTML mockups of their "next generation portal" and the guys on the floor kept imploring people not to click on anything. In the end one of them just unplugged the mouse. Now that is what we can agree is unresponsive, static, cardboard software.

Wonder if this happened at Waste Management. In demos, it alleges, SAP  led Waste Management to believe that it was looking at the finished product when in reality it was mock-up.

Here's what I don't get - given the business they are in, how could they have missed the recycle logo on the cardboard?  -)

Do I wear rose colored glasses?

There has been a spate of "Bad CIO" and "Bad IT" articles recently - CIO Magazine, Michael Krigsman's extinct IT post, and now John Hamalka talking about fellow "bad" CIOs.

I have been racking my brain to think of a really bad CIO over my IT career, especially in recent years in my client base. Not as good compared to other CIOs? Sure. Bad compared to others in the executive suite? Not sure.

CIOs have an almost impossible job - balancing innovation, keeping lights on, compliance and security. Most deliver a lot for 1 to 2% of revenue.  The one criticism I have of some of them is they let certain vendors get away with obscene margins. But even in companies which had massive ERP and other overruns their IT staff were typically at only 0.25 to 0.5 % of revenues. So, in many cases they took the bullet for performance of their vendors.

Find me any other domain in the executive suite with that much stress, which outsources 80 to 90% of its departmental spend, has that much enterprise-wide impact and that much rapid change.

Against that filter - and maybe it is rose colored - I have a hard time saying I know too many "bad" CIOs.

Unfair to Larry

I am tough on Larry Ellison's company, Oracle on this blog.

But I think it is mean to say he "screws local schools" . He deserves to have a fair assessment of his property, like everyone else.

In many ways, he is a generous man. As I wrote last year, I consider him a modern day Medici.

Setting the record straight

I was flattering in my praise of Claus Heinrich of SAP and his book in my post SAP's Hidden Innovations

I have since received information from one of my readers suggesting Claus initially rejected the book idea - that it was written by a ghost writer, and only after his fellow executives praised the draft, did he agree to have it published. It took persistence of behalf of C. Edward Brice of SAP Marketing to push the book through. (No, I have never met this man and he did not send me this information)

A number of busy executives do use ghost writers, so not faulting Claus. But I thought readers should know what I have learned.

If anything it makes my point in that post - "You get the feeling if the initiative is not big and bold, SAP's "aw shucks" about it."

IBM's Corporate Service Corps

Kudos to IBM for encouraging its young executives to do stints abroad as this NY Times article describes:

"In July, a team of 8 to 10 IBM employees will travel to Ghana to help tiny businesses make their operations more professional. Another team will help entrepreneurs seek microloans in Turkey, while yet another will create training programs on information technology in Vietnam."

It sounds very much like the Commerce Corps I had written about in my post Generation G. My vision was a joint business/government program to encourage young Americans to do stints in overseas business locations. IBM is obviously not waiting for any government involvement.

More innovation!

On the New Florence blog

Microsoft Photosynth

"We want to be the IT Department for SMBs" 

Enterprise Software in 2017 

The intrigue of Pi

Searching as a team

Steve Jobs' passion

The real bad news from Oracle's earnings

Wall Street may be disappointed by Oracle's slowdown in revenue growth. But buyers should note that "Oracle has higher operating profit margins than its competitors, including Microsoft."

Software maintenance, along with printer ink, mobile calling, outsourced storage and a few other items, remains among the highest "empty calories" in IT spend. Even higher margins in Oracle's mostly acquisition driven, maintenance related revenue is not good for overall IT spend. Means as IT budgets get tightened they will likely spend proportionately more on keep the lights on, not on innovation areas.

Now that is a reason to feel gloomy.

Could they help software quality?

No country for old men. 4 Academy awards. Acclaimed as a masterpiece by most critics.

I watched it twice this week, just to get the threads straight. And then headed to the IMDB database for the movie to get even more clues.

And I find all these goofs people have identified. Like try getting even $ 200, not $ 14,000, from an ATM in 1980 when the movie was based. What attention to detail. I wish I had not returned the DVD - now I want to go back and check out these goofs.

What's my point?

If they can find all these errors in a well made, award winning movie, you think crowds could help test software? Folks like uTest are providing a mechanism.

Most companies would be skittish about using people off the street, but large qa outsourcing firms have matured in the last few years and provide a much more controlled mechanism for many software companies.

Area code of 210 on telephone bill in the movie. Was not created till 1992. Can you imagine a group of eagle eyes testing our software?

Important or Big or Significant or Meaningless

Classroom assignment for the day:

Please assign probabilities to the adjectives used in this Reuters story about upcoming announcements from salesforce.com

The total of all probabilities cannot exceed 1.0.

Hint: it may be on these lines.

On apathy

I was reading Ben Worthen's blog yesterday where he talks about how rabid Apple fans can be. Over the top. But you sometimes wish we could get just a bit of that in the PC ecosystem.

I took my daughter's laptop to the authorized Toshiba repair shop. Second time the motherboard has failed in its 6 month life. I call yesterday - it's been 9 days. I beg them to get it done before I leave town today. And the guy goes "phone calls like yours take me away from fixing time. I'll do my best". I call today. Lady answers and basically laughs when I turn a bit testy. Can I please at least have it back Friday? She laughs again - no guarantees, she says.

Not looking to give Apple fan boys more to gloat about but between Vista issues,  XBox 360 failures, Toshiba motherboards and now this dealer, I wish the Microsoft ecosystem did get a bit of the Apple pride and passion.