deal architect

Aah...The Refurbished System Smell

This weekend, I posted on my New Florence innovation blog on how you can get for under $ 500 good enough GPS, speakerphone, DVD, back up camera and other technologies for your used car - that car makers and dealers want to charge you thousands for in a new car.

Same concept applies in IT. There are plenty of technologies at the "edge" in data capture, analytics and plenty of other categories on New Florence which can rejuvenate older systems and make them far more productive - for a fraction of newer systems which promise similar form/function.

In a recession, that would be pretty innovative.

The Politics and Ethics of Cloud Computing

The Economist has a survey on changing corporate IT - clouds, SaaS etc. While it covers many of the  concepts and economics in typical 50,000-foot mainstream-media style, it had an interesting take on future political and ethical issues as more computing moves to the cloud

"The legal and political issues are thornier. Even more than previous cross-border utilities, such as the telephone and the internet, the cloud will be a cosmopolitan prisoner to laws that are mainly local. Personal information will be nowhere and everywhere, but most privacy laws still assume that data resides in one place. It is the same with obscenity, hate crime and libel. And online crooks can easily jump from one jurisdiction to another, whereas the authorities from different countries have yet to learn how to co-operate.

The danger is less that the cloud will be a Wild West than that it will be peopled by too many sheriffs scrapping over the rules. Some enforcers are already stirring up trouble, threatening employees of online companies in one jurisdiction to get their employers based in another to fork over incriminating data for instance. Several governments have passed new laws forcing online firms to retain more data. At some point, cloud providers may find themselves compelled to build data centres in every country where they do business."

More New Renaissance

On the innovation blog

"Short List for US CTO"

"The Magic Week"

This will drive teenagers batty:)

HR Frontiers

"New Rays and Old-school Phils"

Diwali and Technology

"W"-eekend Stuff: Too early, too little

I saw Oliver Stone's new movie on the 43rd President.

Bottom Line: Don't bother.

Way too much artistic license mixing people, places, conversations as it suits Oliver. Like adviser Karl Rowe sitting in on National Security meetings - really? Bush's misquote about "Fool me once ..." in a similar meeting not in a public speech.

And too much of a sensational perspective on his younger, wilder days. Without answering questions like if he was so derelict what someone level-headed like Laura saw in him.

But also too early - nothing of the recent economic crisis (which has overshadowed Iraq) is even mentioned, or the political mood and race this year.

And it tries to do too much. The relationship between 43 and 41 could by itself be a full movie. The complex dynamics between him and Cheney. The sibling rivalry between him and Jeb. The enduring relationship between him and Tony Blair. His dealings with the legislative and judiciary branches. Most  topics are teasingly touched on but unexplored in a series of cameos.

Talking about cameos, I thought Stacy Keach stood out as Minister Earle Hudd who helps W  through many of his dark moments. The relationship between the two of them could be a movie all to itself.

Weekend Stuff: More for your money?

For a while now Gillette and other shaving competitors have been increasing the number of blades in their razors and prices to well, premium levels. Fusion is up to 5 blades and an additional "precision trimmer"

But with the recession P&G, which bought Gillette, is pitching cost in its new ads - "a pack of Fusion Power replacement razors costs "a dollar a week," a calculation based on average retail prices spread over the six months that P&G says an eight-pack will last."

P&G: where do I order those magical cartridges that last 25 days of use?

And btw, I cannot wait for the Porsche Cayenne Turbo with its 4 tube tail pipes (which makes every other car with 1-2 tubes feel unmanly), to start pitching it only costs a dollar a trip :)

Weekend Stuff: "Experience a sleeper suite"

says a Delta promotional email. I have flown their JFK-Mumbai flight a few times, and while the service was nice, the lack of a flat bed on the 16 hour non-stop was disappointing.

So, I am excitedly open the email. Yes they now have a flat bed, but it is a stretch to call it a "suite"

Because leading airlines around the world have established a benchmark on what is a suite in the sky - Emirates. Singapore. Jet Airways.

But wait. Delta promises me triple miles. Yup, the tired, old "feature" US airlines fall back on. Which we then have to fight with them to try and use.

Much as Delta has been good to me,  I would love to see a new wave of US airlines representing us on international routes..

Groundhog Day

Francine McKenna is irate that the US Treasury has hired PwC and E&Y to help implement the massive financial bailout - almost for emphasis she says it's like letting wolves, not just foxes, into the hen house.

Why do we keep going with so called "safe choices"? Reagan once said some thing to the effect of Washington having a habit of subsidizing poorly performing industries and companies.

But why just pick on DC?

My biggest dread in the recession is CIOs will similarly consolidate the spend with their biggest, "safest" vendors - when in fact those very players represent the most "empty calories" in sw, outsourcing, telecom spend.

"If there is a consultant in the room… its not a cloud"

A while ago, James Governor had a post on what Cloud Computing is Not..one of his points was it better have a low emphasis on consultants and other labor.

I have been watching the rapid pace at which amazon has been "hardening" its cloud offerings for enterprise use and how rapidly it reacts to competitive moves from the likes of Rackspace. And contrasting it to announcements from IBM and HP about cloud computing in the next year and beyond, and wondering how they will react to the warp speed that amazon is defining for the market.

But just as important is the question prompted by James. How will they reshape their outsourcing business to get away from headcount heavy offerings and revenue models?

What software consolidation?

There are 100 new companies in the Annual Software Magazine 500. As usual, the issue is full of industry stats and metrics.

MISO (Microsoft, IBM, SAP and Oracle) only accounts for a third of the total global revenues of roughly $ 450 billion.

And the list does not include a whole bunch of private companies, especially in emerging global markets.

The two tails of the mobile bell curve

Two extreme stories smacked me this morning:

a) MIT Technology Review has a story on India's 300 million and growing mobile customer base.

"Her prepaid plan allows outgoing calls for about half a rupee (less than two cents) per minute. One of her communication strate­gies is to note the phone number of an incoming call but not answer the phone. It's a common trick throughout the developing world; in this manner, people can convey mutually understood messages, such as "Let's meet.""

b) NY Times on AT&T writing a check to Apple

"$ 900 million. That is the amount of money AT&T paid to Apple for the 2.4 million iPhones the phone company sold in the third quarter."

That works out to roughly $ 375 an iPhone. Of course over 5 years,  if my TCO numbers are correct,  AT&T stands to make the majority of $ 7,500 to $ 20,000 per iPhone.

Kinda puts what we need versus what we want from mobile service in stark contrast.