Category Archives: rants

It Doesn’t Matter How Strategic The IT Vendor Is …

It matters how strategic the solution they offer is! I shouldn’t have to point this out, but after encountering a recent article in Intelligent Enterprise on “the 10 most strategic IT vendors” which basically just tooted the horn of the usual suspects (IBM, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, HP, Teradata, VMWare, and EMC), I feel that I have to because most of their primary offerings — namely operating systems, hardware, networking products, and virtualization software — are not strategic to your business at all! Even relational databases and ERPs on their own are not strategic anymore. Everyone and their dog has a database these days, and ERP is open source software now (think Compiere). You can even get a professionally managed solution with unlimited records in the cloud for as little as €99 a month from providers like Erply.

And just because no one ever got fired for buying IBM, it doesn’t mean it was the right decision. The value isn’t in the name, it’s in the solution that is being delivered and the returns you are able to generate. If SAP or Oracle was everything you need, why would Ariba, BravoSolution, CombineNet, DecideWare, Emptoris, FieldGlass, Global Data Mining, Hiperos, Iasta, JDA, and hundreds of other companies have successful businesses when they all have solution offerings that are fundamentally based on the analysis of transactional data stored in relational databases? Because the “strategic” is in the advanced analysis that the big-name vendors offering old-school solutions don’t have yet!

So don’t get suckered by the name or the market size. What’s important is what the solution can do for you and whether or not the vendor is financially stable and will be around to support you on it. If the ROI is there and the vendor’s not going anywhere, you go for it. Simple as that!

Share This on Linked In

Are We Throwing It All Away?

Someday you’ll be sorry
Someday when you’re free
Memories will remind you
Of what was meant to be
But late at night when you call for help
The only sound you’ll hear
Is the sound of your voice calling
Calling out for help

Just throwing it all away
Throwing it all away
And there’s nothing that I can say

With apologies to Phil Collins, that slightly modified verse just keeps playing over and over again in my head. This recent article in Industry Week on “optimizing outsourcing relationships for today’s market realities” has me shaking my head. Manufacturers signed contracts to outsource more than $10.4 billion worth of IT and business process services in the last six months of 2009. 10.4 Billion! That’s an awful lot of services being handed out and an awful lot of knowledge at risk of disappearing. Not that I have anything against augmenting your capabilities with those from best-in-class organizations, but the way most organizations approach outsourcing, where it’s just thrown over the wall and forgotten about until all knowledge of the service disappears from organizational memory, scares me.

And ever since I saw that ridiculous article that said we should “outsource thinking”, I’m on edge. We’re on the precipice of a new age, but if we’re not careful, it will be a very dark age in American history. Innovation got us here, and without innovation, which depends on thinking, we’ll fade away.

Share This on Linked In

If Twitter’s CEO Really Wants You To Get Stuff Done …

He’d shut down Twitter. Period.

At the very least, he’d make permanent account termination a single click for people who are tired of contentless tweets that make them dumber than a pothead and cause them to fail basic English competency tests. After all, it’s not like anyone hears when a twit speaks in the twittersphere. And 10 Billion Tweets is just too much.

Twitter is NOT an information network. Information, by definition, must convey meaning. Billions of random thoughts, tiny URLS that disappear almost as fast as they are generated, and content-free marketing messages do not contain meaning. And you can’t increase the signal-to-noise ratio without a signal! Zero is zero is zero. It doesn’t matter how you look at it: upside down, right-side up, inverted … it’s still zero! Sounds to me like the CEO has been spending a little too much time on his own “network”! And if you don’t believe me, check out this article on techradar, where he’s quoted.

Yet Another Reason Why the doctor is Spaceless, Faceless, and Twitter-Free

Check out this recent article by PCWorld on how your “MySpace User Data [is] For Sale”. This includes any activity or information that is attached to an account, specifically blog posts, location, photos, reviews, and status updates-among others. And I don’t care what wording they use. They can claim it’s just free access to publicly available real-time data, but if they’re making it possible for anyone to get access to data you thought would only be seen by your closest friends [because you didn’t read to the end of the usage agreement which says they own your data], then they’re selling your data, plain and simple.

So don’t be surprised if that blog post extolling the virtues of the new laptop you bought winds up on the manufacturer’s site; if your name, age, and entertainment preferences put you on top of the local satellite provider’s “call until they buy” list; or if that hot beach picture ends up in an ad promoting the services of, say, a site like Adult Friend Finder.

Who’s Smarter? A Twitterer or a Pothead?

If you said “pothead”, congratulations! You’re right!

A recent study carried out at the Institute of Psychiatry found that excessive use of technology reduces workers’ intelligence (BBC). Specifically, those distracted by incoming e-mail and phone calls saw a 10-point fall in their IQ – more than twice that found in studies of the impact of smoking marijuana. Twitter really is making a twit out of you!

Those who are constantly breaking away from tasks to react to email or text messages suffer similar effects on the mind as losing a night’s sleep. So just imagine what a constant barrage of tweets from twits would do to you!