deal architect

Icahn launches hostile bid for AP

Ok, got your attention.

But did you know Carl now has a blog? And sure enough the battle hardened legal team he has grown over the years does him proud with their "Terms of Use"

I would love to see them duke it out with the AP lawyers as they try to enforce their own "Terms of use"

Winner gets to put a Director on the Yahoo! board :)

"Accounting is not that difficult. SAP is."

comments a reader on the WSJ blog.

Further comments: "If I ever start a business, I’m not going to use SAP. I’ll hire really smart accountants and let them use paper and pencil."

Dear Reader, I know some Wall Street firms who would love to hire your team to unravel Oracle earnings and flows after the 40 acquisitions it has done in the last few years.

Just don't forget to requisition plenty of paper and pencil through the Ariba eProcurement system.

He should have used the Level 1 Help desk

Of course, Bill Gates does not get the service he deserves even 5 years later.(Actually to be more precise 5 years, 5 months, 8 days later).

If he had called the help desk like the process says, the ticket would have been logged and escalated and resolved years ago.

Come now, Bill - don't you know trying to pull rank and sending emails outside the chain of help desk command is not an acceptable process exception? :)

More in New Florence

on the innovation blog

Sensors to measure electrolyte levels

Automating Home Automation

Most software downloaded in 24 hours

More innovative CIOs

"Mind Reading" computer

May every industry have such a benevolent watchdog

Wired

"Verizon's marketing ploy worked like this: After a subscriber signed on with another carrier, the company was notified of the cancellation, and was expected to port the number as part of the number portability process.

Instead of just complying with the request, Verizon would start aggressively marketing ex-customers in an effort to win them back with new incentives. It seems like a pretty standard practice, but Verizon also sent out a "jeopardy notice" to the other carrier, and stalled on porting the number by coding it as in "conflict," so the carrier had to resolve the conflict before it could begin servicing the new customer."

But get this - Kevin Martin, Chairman of FCC defends Verizon "Customer retention marketing is a form of aggressive competition that has the potential to benefit consumers through lower prices and expanded service offerings."

Using that logic, airlines should be entitled to lose bags when passengers transfer to another airline and hold them hostage at the gate so they miss the competing flight. And car dealers would be allowed to take away their customer keys till they bought a new car. Hey, that is "customer retention" ...

Fair, aggressive competition is good - so why has the FCC allowed so much consolidation in the last few years?

The answer is yes

On the EDS blog is a post titled Is BPDM too complex for BPMN 2.0?

My answer is unquestionably yes - since I have no earthly what either acronym stands for :)

Thank you, Oracle!

Ignore Dave Rosenberg's comment the action is obnoxious. On behalf of your competitors, third party maintenance vendors like Rimini, and sourcing/negotiation advisers and executives everywhere thank you for raising prices 20% in the middle of a recession and making our jobs that much easier. 

"US Telecom Industry unfairly maligned"

Talk about timing. The week Congress finally agreed to give the major US telcos immunity from lawsuits related to their wiretap involvement, Verizon President and COO Denny Strigl  in his NXTcomm08 keynote speech says the U.S. telco industry leads the world in broadband and mobile “in the ways that count.” and that it is "unfairly maligned"

Hmm...The country had a fiber vision in the early 90s and 15 years later we are still mostly on copper. Verizon (and other RBOCs) inherited the envy of world's telecom infrastructure from Ma Bell. It has had a benevolent regulator in the FCC for the last decade which has been pro-industry, pro-consolidation far more than pro-consumer. Maligned?

But, Denny let's get specific and count the ways as you say that count.

You say we have 100 million broadband connections. Is that using the FCC definition of broadband as 200 kbps? Or it is as of June 13 when the FCC revised the definition to a whopping 768 kbps?

You say there is broadband service in every zip code. Is that using the FCC definition that if one household has broadband (yes, uno) the whole zip code is considered "broadband-covered"?

You say three quarters of the US population has at least 2 broadband providers and some as many as six or seven. Ok, if that means competition why do US consumers pay so much more than consumers in other countries? See this data from the OECD which you quote in other parts of your speech.

You say "broadband wireless service...is growing three times faster in the U.S. than elsewhere, and ignores differences in geography.". Denny, Nokia sells 100 million phones a year in China and India - yes a year - and they have as obscure places as we do in the US. Like Tibet. Want to bet they will have more 3G coverage than us in a few years? BTW - Only 25% of us today have 3G access compared to 75% in Japan and Korea.

You say US wireless consumers "use more minutes, pay lower prices and have greater choices". Yes, we use more minutes because, unlike in many other countries, our plans double-count. Incoming and outgoing minutes are both counted. More choice in the US? You need to go to the UK. Pay lower prices? Cross-border call rates are capped in the EU.  US Consumers pay $ 1 to 4 a minute when we travel. Consumer Reports has for the last 6 years reported US mobile services one of the worst services its large readership rates across industries.

You say "Unlike other countries, what we have accomplished has come not through [government] policy but through private investment". Private Investment? What about the $ 200 billion Cringely wrote about?. And why are telecoms taxed so heavily in the US compared to other products? If our private telcos are working effectively why do we need $ 40 billion worth of annual taxes to regulate/subsidize the industry?

Back to the immunity. If the telcos did not have a choice in the wiretap matter - if the Feds mandated them - I can understand the immunity. But it sets a bad precedent. Now the telcos want one for the lawsuits against them for wireless early termination fees.  And likely next up a call for protection against a growing number of state regulators scrutinizing Verizon services.

"Unfairly Maligned"? More like charmed life I would say.

Call to Steve Jobs: Please reshape the enterprise software market

As I was marveling at the velocity in the iPhone ecosystem a couple of weeks ago I was looking at a client's list of aging software contracts. Most of the vendors want "uplift" fees for the older releases, not lowered ones reflecting software which hardly gets any enhancement and for which the client support calls have been minimal. It was quite a stark contrast.

Then I have a conversation with Dennis Howlett about SAP's Business ByDesign. He is excited about how the mid-market has never before seen such an integrated enterprise piece of software. And I shrug my shoulders and go SAP delivered that integration 25 years ago in R/2. For me, reading BusinessSolutions magazine, the excitement in the mid-market is around RFID, Wi-Fi, scanners,VoIP not another piece of enterprise software.

Then I see Oracle try its "makeup" at E2.0 and ask - why is Oracle just talking about light applications when it has charged its customers billions to deliver the next-gen, Fusion enterprise class applications. Why is there still not much news about that years after they were announced?

Then I see my EI colleagues and others argue about multi-tenancy in SaaS. Ok, important architectural discussion but does the person in the warehouse, field, trading, hospital or plant floor really give two hoots? Where is SaaS functionality for those workers?

Then I see Sam Lawrence's elegant post about the "enterprise octopus" and why the next generation of social, collaborative applications will be better. And I drool over his graphics, but ask the same question as above. How does it make the life of folks in the warehouse, field, trading, hospital or plant floor better?

And the answer, unfortunately is, sensors, and scanners and mobile devices have been helping them a lot more than in recent years than enterprise software has. While enterprise software continues to increase its part of the IT budget faster than other tech categories.

Steve Jobs: know you are busy, but in your remaining waking hours, can you please come in and shake up the enterprise software industry?

Global Musings

Some recent articles friends have shared with me

Will Estonia Liberate the United States?

"Watching The Singing Revolution and reflecting on its aftermath, I was struck by the strange new reversal in roles-the former Soviet bloc rushing to embrace free enterprise while the U.S. retreats from economic liberty. In the 1980s, America's resolve against Soviet tyranny helped to liberate Estonia. Perhaps, in leading by example, Estonia some day can return the favor."

Not just Estonia, which by the way is the world's most wired nation, but also in many former Soviet territories you get "freedom is too precious to lose again" vibe as I wrote last year

The Second World

Interview with Parag Khanna, a foreign policy specialist

"The Shanghai Cooperation Organization does not care who the next president of the United States is; the European Union hardly even cares who the next president is. Russia doesn’t even care. Russia only cares about the price of oil. Whether Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain is the next president is a distant eighth priority for them. "

Personally, I think the average person in a number of these countries does care who comes after Bush

Ireland's immigrants

'Never mind the downturn, the real danger could be if the (Irish) economy starts to pick up again and all those construction and service jobs can't be filled by Poles and Romanians who have gone. Then who will fill them? Most of the immigrants have been white and Catholic; what happens when they are replaced by more people from Africa and Asia? That will be the real test of our tolerance.'

Sad to see the country which has enriched so many countries around the world with its immigrants struggle with its own immigration issues. (Disclosure: my wife is from Longford, Ireland)