deal architect

Features with a tiny "f"

Over a decade ago, Larry Ellison had derided younger vendors like Ariba, E.piphany and Commerce One:

“These things aren’t companies, they’re features!”

If those were mere features what to make of the millions of single threaded mobile apps and web services that have emerged in the last few years?

And frankly, what to make of offerings of even bigger vendors when you consider their place in the portfolio of buyer applications. In my recent book research, I have talked to company after company which have 50, 100, 500 IT projects underway. And  as they describe what they are innovating, they are mentioning specific vendors only so often.

Two reasons – few vendors are helping them much with their strategic product/service/business model innovation, and buyers are custom building at a pace not seen in a long time.

But nobody seems to have told the social nets that. You have the SAP community where no matter what the customer problem, HANA is the answer. Ditto with the Enterprise 2.0 crowd. You get functional specialists – accountants, HR, procurement etc – who appear sublimely uninterested in all the innovation happening elsewhere in the enterprise and keep hyping their own functional vendors.

Maybe Larry will slap some humility back into the market. Frankly, many customers are already making their own calls.   

A different side to Larry Ellison

The mention of Rafael Nadal in this Bob Evans post reminded me of a short section I had written for a book but not published before. It is about Barcelona's legendary school, La Masia which graduated 7 of the Spanish players who helped the country win the 2010 World Cup and superstars like Lionel Messi and yet is as much about academics as athleticism.

"La Masia enrolls 200 or so students a year, many as young as 7. Many move away from their parents and learn Barcelona’s distinctive “poetry” - style of short, rhythmic passing and ball control for long minutes. They learn the mix of “total football” made famous by Dutch football great Johan Cyruff, and traditional Spanish one-touch play (tiqui-taka). They also benefit from some of the best nutritionists, trainers, teachers (they spend more time in class than on the field), computer technicians in the sport. Being one degree of separation from Messi, Xavi and other graduates provides its own inspiration."

What does have to do with Larry?

Well, Larry is a big tennis and Nadal fan and into whole bunch of other activities, but he has a vision for a school which sounds awfully like La Masia's

"Think of a high school that’s two-thirds Stanford and one-third Naval Academy. It would have been a private school, but with 80 percent of the kids on full scholarship, a student recruiting program to ensure high academic and athletic standards plus diversity, a student orchestra that would make Juilliard proud, and a superb athletic program—the kind that wins state championships. The kids would wear uniforms, and of course, everyone would learn how to sail. We’d go out and find talented kids, get them taught, coached, mentored, and off to college"

Bob's post has other quotes and episodes which provide more of an insight into the man. There are tons of people who have never been within a few miles of Larry but have a hardened view of him. Not sure it will sway them, but it is a good read about what drives one of our industry's icons.

 

A conflicted 4th

I find myself feeling even more patriotic than usual on this 4th of July for living in a country which allows me to have all the conflicting feelings I have after the NSA/Snowden affair

a) Every country spies. Been going on since the days of the pharaohs and even before. The techniques reflect the state of technology in a society. In some they still steam open mail envelopes. In others, they still make copies of visitor passports at each hotel they stay at. In still others they question visitors for hours on the way out of the country. It's their unusual  form of gathering intelligence. The US is a more social, digital society - so not surprisingly PRISM is about electronic communications. I would be more surprised if we were not eavesdropping.

b) I do worry if our NSA has become like our TSA. Just greedily collecting all kinds of data and not having the technology or resources to mine it effectively. Also giving our analysts way more power than their age and experience would suggest.

c) I worry even more about our technology providers. Not just picking on Verizon but there is ultimate hypocrisy in talking about an ethics committee on your website and about protecting customer data. Seriously? In contrast I recently saw a European POV on web privacy which highlights a commitment to "values" - supporting self-determination, democratic participation and economic wellbeing. 

d) I am embarrassed by diplomats around the world. The Russians and Chinese mocking the US with their own track record of individual freedoms? Europeans with their mock shock about US spying just prior to major trade talks? The US bullying of countries to not consider asylum for Snowden? The shoddy treatment of the Bolivian President's plane? We will look back and say this was a sad few weeks for diplomats everywhere.

e) I have become acutely aware of generation gaps. I had naively lost track what with 2 year olds with iPads and 80 year old grandmas with their Nooks. My generation is conservative, the generation after us libertarian. So I find myself embarrassed by politicians of my generation who call Snowden and journalists like Greenwald traitors. I don't know what their motivations are, but I do consider them awfully brave.

So on this 4th cutting through the confusing talk of the politicians and diplomats and business executives, I want to celebrate the bravery of individuals. And to celebrate the country which allows them a platform to be so.