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CTO Blog
Technology
The Year of the Q
If there is anything that we have learned in 2009, it is the final end of the SOLL. The present is already difficult enough to denote, let alone what might happen afterwards. Predictions for the coming year? Useless. If only we had tea leaves. At least we would have something to hold on to.
Economic models: nothing more than a thin illusion of being in control. The moment you set one step outside your ivory tower, you will probably be hit by low flying Black Swans. Currently, discussions focus on what shape the economic growth will have. Is it the ‘V’ or the ‘W’? Have we passed the lowest point – recovering slowly but surely – or are we in for yet another dive down? Or – alternatively – are we in for a steady, on-going flow of little ‘W’s? Who knows, perhaps, maybe.
Personally, for 2010 I propose the letter ‘Q’: that recalcitrant character that nobody can get a grip on. Perfectly pigheaded, turning left or right, from the top to the bottom, vice versa and then – suddenly – lunging into the open space. Typical behaviour for 2010, the year that cannot be prognosticated.
Right. So that’s agreed.
Bu then again, we are only human. So let’s try to have quick peek into next year, against all odds. Nothing fancy with tapping the power of the crowd, as we have seen to what accuracy that lead, last year December.
One thing is for sure. In the year of the Q we will end the 2.0 terror. To all IT people trying to impose their version number thinking on everything and everybody around them: enough is enough. Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Identity 2.0, Government 2.0, Health 2.0, Family 2.0: we got the point by now. Honestly. Stop it. Thanks.
Oracle OpenWorld: innovation. 2009 style.
Who said that IT does not create economic value? Oracle proved differently this week at their OpenWorld 2009 conference in San Francisco. At least, so did the 40000 conference attendees that swarmed the city and almost single-handedly reanimated the financial position of the troubled state of California.
For the rest, I am not so sure.
The theme of this year’s conference was ‘powering innovation’, but the messaging turned out to be quite pragmatic and down-to-earth. Apparently – no, obviously - innovation in 2009 is about consolidation and making better use of what you already have. Oracle stipulated that its innovation budget is higher than ever. But the bulk of the money goes to rationalising and integrating the impressive portfolio of solutions that the company already possesses.
Nothing different really from the main challenges that most other organisations currently face. Their existing infrastructures and business application landscapes are simply too complex and absorb too much budget. And this sprawl has to be dealt with first. When done properly, it can save a lot of money. Which of course helps. It also provides the flexible platform to launch future innovations. Which not necessarily means already executing them.
It gives a new perspective on the slogan ‘powering innovation’. The focus might be more on creating a foundation for innovation than actually innovating.
Probably the best illustration of this was in they keynote of guest speaker Michael Dell. Not so long ago he was considered one of these breakthrough, paradigm-shifting visionaries that showed us how to reshape the fundamentals of a business model through the use of advanced technology. And maybe he still is. At least he stunned the audience with his promise that he would bring nothing less than 200 billion dollars of cost savings to the market.
How is he going to do that? Further build on his daring concept of the extended enterprise? Real-time collaboration embedded in a smart value chain? Self-optimising, RFID-enabled logistics? Complex event processing?
Not exactly.
Enterprise Karmic Koala
When on holidays, I try to be unaware of technology as much as possible (people that happen to know my e-mail out-of-office messages will recognise this). Only natural. But not as easy as it seems. Two years ago, when we drove back through the French Lorraine region, we ended up in an ultra-modern fuel station that had literally crashed due to a software error. A guy in a yellow emergency vest was nervously searching for a Windows start-up disk while all of his screens just showed that all too familiar sandglass. And last year, when we cruised through lovely California we could not even imagine how to do it without TripAdvisor, Google Maps and a bunch of other on-line travelling tools. This year, after returning from Spain and the Alsace, I decided to buy a new bicycle. I found a not too expensive Gitane mountain bike – completely made in France, quite an unexpected pleasure – only to find out later that the model is called ‘Fitz Roy 2.0’.
That really got me annoyed.
A bicycle with a software version number? What is that supposed to mean? Is it Facebook-enabled? Does it send GPS-based tweets every hour? Or is just meant to be ‘open’ and shared by everybody (which happens to be the default for bicycles in Amsterdam, for that matter). And what might the even newer, enhanced Gitane Fitz Roy 3.0 bring? All parts have self-describing RFID chips built in? Semantic tyres? This is what happens when IT people start to flood the marketing department.
Google's Chrome OS kills Quality Time
No point in adding yet another platitude to the ocean of comments on Google’s announcement of Chrome OS. Guess we saw it coming. And it was hardly rocket science, I might add.
It is however worrying that Google envisions an operating system that will fire up a laptop in just a few seconds. I mean, after all these years of getting used to operating systems that take more and more time to start up, I sort of got fond of the idea of being delayed. Admitted, it’s the IT version of the Stockholm Syndrome, but I actually cherished these precious moments of being forced to do nothing. Whether Windows, OS X, or Ubuntu: while loading their endless series of kernel software modules and drivers, they all brought me valuable opportunities to meditate or to contemplate the day to come. I would watch that hourglass for many minutes and time after time it would remind me of the relativity of technology and the craziness of rush and speed. Or I would just thoroughly enjoy a strong espresso. Or I would do nothing. All justified by our commonly shared acceptance of operating systems that are so complex that they take forever to come to live.
Now Google breaks this equilibrium with Crome OS, with the promise that booting it will be a matter of seconds. It will set a trend and we should hate them for it. Or at least, we should think twice before clicking on one of these placed ads. That will teach them.
Goodbye Quality Time. I will miss you dearly.
The Internet of Things just got a little closer
I was recently asked by a journalist: ‘what exactly does the often-used phrase “the internet of things” mean to you?’ It was a good and sensible question, as we use a number of such terms as useful concepts to avoid being overly specific. My reply did not do me much credit. I said I saw the term as a convenient way to avoid having to specify the many different things rapidly becoming connected to the internet. It set me thinking.
The next trigger was the announcement in the Japanese press about NEC planning to reduce the price of its RFID tags to around 10% of the current cost. Seemingly, major advancements ‘in the field of semiconductor research’ will mean NEC can accept orders for 10,000 tags at $100 from July. The tags are supposedly compatible to all six global standards. This price breakthrough makes the use of RFID in areas such as retail supply chains much more viable.
The Washington Template
I just might be repeating myself a little bit. But clearly, the Obama administration is setting a worldwide example of how to change a business through technology 2009 style. It went through my mind again when preparing for a panel on Tech Transformation, next week at the Forbes CEO Forum in Scotland. You see, it is one thing to get inspired by new technologies and understand how they can radically change business models – which is more than ever relevant in this period of downturn. But actually execute on these ideas and bring the promise to life: that may be the tougher challenge of the two.
I think they are doing both in Washington and we should all watch and learn from the patterns that are unfolding.
Barack Obama himself, to start with, is an excellent role model for any CEO that wants to grasp the potential of technology to transform business. He is obviously technology-savvy (without being a geek) and shows how to apply information technology in a pragmatic way. Many would argue that he got elected because of his smart use of Web 2.0 to reach out to his potential voters and mobilise a community. And after becoming elected he is still actively using all Internet channels to stay in touch with that community. Already in his campaign, he referred to technology as one of the most important tools to address the phenomenal challenges that America – indeed a complex business - is facing. Healthcare, education, energy, R&D: in the plans of Obama, technology would provide the breakthroughs to make his country leading again.
And now he is executing on the vision. Together with an impressive team.
Choose: Intel Xeon 5500 or Open Cloud Manifesto
Sounds like a strange question indeed. Do we really want to compare between Apples from Venus and Oranges from Mars? Should we care about Intel’s launch of its ‘Nehalem’ processor for servers – the Xeon 5500 – or should we be much more interested in the recent publication of the Open Cloud Manifesto? When I probed this dilemma on Twitter and Yammer (a very effective way to do a quick poll), most people would tend to the Open Cloud Manifesto. After all, who is interested in yet another processor series, if computing is now ready to disappear in the cloud and becomes the specialty of just a few suppliers?
Well, not so fast, maybe.
I think we all agree on the fact that the cloud will drastically change the IT landscape as we currently know it. But we are living in the downturn of 2009 and companies want to see quick, proven results with a solid business case. We are definitely getting there with the cloud. But we need more experience. And better scenario’s for migration, integration and security. And we desperately need interoperability between cloud solutions. The fact that we now have a first Open Cloud Manifesto does not solve that issue. Actually, it illustrates that we have a long way to go. To be quite honest, the manifesto is a nice, politically correct document that nobody can really oppose to. But it is very low on substance. And some of the most influential - or aspiring – cloud players (think Microsoft, Google, Amazon) did not sign the manifesto; neither did the Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum.
So quite some air around the cloud so far.
I would say Intel’s new processor series are definitely a better way to achieve quick, tangible results. We tested the new processor at an early stage ourselves on some typical server workloads and found very impressive performance improvements (300% and more, even on non-optimised applications) combined with an even more relevant drop in power consumption (35% and more). Add up the enhanced support for virtualisation, and you can do the math yourself.
So maybe Apples from Venus are not so bad after all. And to all you manifesto fans: Venus is the most cloudy planet in the solar system. There is always hope.
Benjamin Button operating system
Must have been very disappointing. ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ got a record number of nominations for the Oscars, but only won three minor awards. It won’t provide any solace, but I certainly would have granted the movie my personal award for ‘Best Metaphor for IT-related Subjects’. When I watch Brad Pritt mature from a baby in a old-mans body to a man in the strength of his life, then finally end as an old man in a baby’s body, I can’t help but relating it to – well - operating systems.
A sad example of an occupational disability indeed.
But think about it: most operating systems by now are complete ready for some life cycle reversal. And I am not just talking about Microsoft Windows. I recently bought the 2009 editions of Apple’s iLife and iWork software suites. What a bulky bunch of fat client applications that really is. Spontaneously, it starts to feel like an anachronism. As I wait for the huge software stack to install itself from DVD, I realise that I don’t even know what new features are contained in this edition. What can I say? I am one of these unquestioning Apple junkies. Eventually, I find an interesting functionality in iPhoto: self-calibrating face recognition software scans your photo library, identifies people and tags them in handy categories. With the size of my library, the initial scan takes more than 5 hours. It fully absorbs my poor Dual Core Apple Mini and I think about how an optimised, Googlified server farm probably could have done the job in seconds. No doubt it also would do much better in storing the photo’s. And in processing the movies I am editing. And in managing the music that I buy from iTunes. So what will be the point of the 2010 editions – and beyond – of this type of applications and the operating systems that run them?
We have Ataris and we are not afraid to use them
What happens when graduates come into their first jobs and find that the IT facilities at the office are an anachronism? What do you get when business users know exactly what innovative technologies can deliver and still get a ‘no’ from the IT department? Probably the same as what happened yesterday at the White House when Obama’s new iPodified staff entered its new offices for the first time.
Quite a reality check, to crash into a wall of old software, security regulations from an ancient past that forbid digital communication (Thou Shalt Not Email) and just a few lonely, pitiful laptops. The eager new-media team came in, only to find out that there were no Macintoshes within a range of 10 miles of the perimeter.
The horror!
Instead, they had to work with 6 year-old versions of Microsoft software (although that is not necessarily a bad thing nowadays, admitted).
‘It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari’ lamented Obama’s spokesman Bill Burton. And although the metaphor is a bit misplaced - what’s wrong with an Atari after all – we can easily sympathize with what the new staff is going through. Guess we saw it coming.
Interesting enough, people in the White House soon turn out to be just as creative as their fellow-victims in other organisations: they apply the same Bricolage-style pragmatics to achieve their goals. And we are only getting a flavour of what is destined to happen much more in many different businesses.
Apparently, the officials in the press office were already prepared: in addition to using their own mobile phones they set up Gmail accounts so that they freely could send and receive information. Quite a daring step. But then again, 2009 might prove to be a transitional year. Let’s keep a close look at the IT machinery in Washington for changes. Who knows, that old-fashioned pong game might indeed morph into a highly interactive, 3D multi-player experience.
Or not. In either case, we should learn.
43 IT Things to do in 2009
No better timing than right now to contemplate your plans for 2009. And why not use good old 43Things to do it in true web 2.0 style? Until now, I have been using the site to write down and share my own personal, silly targets. Meditate more. Pick up Chinese boxing training again. Create the first Yellow Raincoat painting. Write a book about Slow IT. You know, just the basic, ordinary stuff we can all relate to.
But why not do it a bit different this year? What if the CIO would share his or her ’43 IT Things to do in 2009’ with the company. Wouldn’t that be a simple and transparent tool to communicate and share the IT strategy? And wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise to condense that complete strategy into a couple (7, 12, 43, whatever) of simple, straightforward targets that others can understand and comment on?
Or why not use the list to create a wish list of personal IT activities that we should definitely consider in 2009? I really hope that you readers – since many of you will now have a few days off – can help me to compile a list of 43 items that we will then publish on the site for everybody to see and work with.
To get the discussion started, here is my first list of IT activities that people may want to plan for in 2009:
1. Build your own mashup application
2. Become a Togaf 9 certified architect
3. Give and get one OLPC laptop
4. Use a cloud application
5. Blog about your project
6. Install Ubuntu Linux on a PC
7. Start a community on Ning
8. Get a personal KPI gadget on your desktop
9. Try an Android smart phone
10. Use social networking tools within the IT department
Technology that Matters
I have written already two times about the XO laptop, an extremely important initiative of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation. But I think you should all know that the Give One Get One action has started again through Amazon. Just a case of very proper timing, I guess, with Christmas and a New Year coming. But also in a period of downturn that gets many people to rethink their position in a world that is dominated just a bit too much by greet, short-term success and shallowness. And if that is not even enough reason, the XO happens to be quite a juicy, contemporary device, with its solid state storage, mesh networking and open source software. This is technology that matters. Technology that can change the world. Have a look at it.
Tech Predictions 2009: Deliberately Disconnected
As we are well into November, it is high time we take a few peeks into what 2009 may bring. As the past months have proven though, anything can happen, anytime, anywhere. Volatility is a life style. Yep, and life was easy when we still thought that change was the only constant.
At least we had a constant.
So what can we do? Predict anyway, of course. Follow this blog in the forthcoming weeks to see what is boiling up in Capgemini’s CTO and Technology communities and let us know next year autumn if we were right. Or better still: join us right now in the comments and share your own predictions with the rest of us.
To kick off, here is my first prediction: being Deliberately Disconnected is something we will actively search for. And if not, others will force us. UK commuter train operator C2C already did it: they are using high tech film to block GSM mobile reception in their coaches. Imagine that ocean of calm, everybody having these introspective, meditative moments before embarking on yet another hectic working day. No shouting, no funny ringtones, no text beeps, just serenity. Hopefully this is a lesson to all the doomed airlines that are considering to allow the use of mobile phones on board of their planes: 2009 is going to be tough as it is anyway, so you may not want to chase away your remaining, loyal passengers (believe me, using mobile phones on a plane will lead to unbearable pandemonium, there will be blood).
Something With Substance about Green IT
In a previous post, Something Substantial on Technology and Green IT, I wrote about the difficulties we face as an industry in putting together well thought-out recommendations about how to raise ‘green’ higher on the IT agenda. IT tends to revert to meeting reliability and cost-requirements in the absence of well-defined green standards. Indeed, the problem we face is that the most direct way of aligning green to IT is aligning energy costs with the IT P&L! However, this doesn’t exactly promote the imperative that IT should consider ‘green’ as a core business aim with an undertaking that requires a new strategic approach. Knee-jerk reactions like replacing IT kit with more energy-efficient hardware actually creates a waste problem in itself.
Since I wrote that post back in March, two major factors have emerged which are changing the way we are now thinking about Green IT. First, there is greatly increased media and environmental-watchdog scrutiny in addition to directives such as WEEE, RoHS, and REACH*; and around the world, various government climate change legislation, like the soon to be passed UK Climate Change Bill. Second, we are currently experiencing what can only be described as broadly-impacting economic events, which are greatly changing the context in which cost-control is viewed (the much maligned “credit crunch”).
Android or iPhone? Forget the Specification look at ….
Google Android was nicknamed ‘Kila’ apparently in reference to its intended role against the Apple iPhone and there will be plenty of comments on this aspect, (Business Week provided a good balanced view), but in my usual slightly different way of looking of things I want to stress the differences. I am increasingly a believer in the theory that mass market products will have a set of generic features that make comparisons difficult as they will all tick every one of the boxes and therefore it pays to focus on the differences.
However the differences don’t lie so much in the features list, they lie in the optimisation of the interfacing for particular purposes. Though this blog will use the Google phone and iPhone issue to explore the point, increasingly I find the same approach holds true for more and more technology. I believe that as we see the ‘people’ aspect being the key driver for the current generation of products and services, and therefore, are trying to keep technology interaction as unobtrusive as possible, this is the new ‘differentiation’ to focus upon.
Less Speed and more Objectivity on Google Chrome
There was a rush to get out comments on Google’s new browser Chrome when it was launched at the beginning of September, indeed I even had internal mail expressing surprise that I had not posted a piece on Chrome. Whilst in no way expressing anything negative against my colleagues posts – all four of them on the CTOBlog and Capping IT Off Blog – I am concerned that the quest for immediacy may sometimes be at the expense of considered objectivity.
This point got re-enforced by a colleague, our very own guest blogger Vinesh, drawing my attention to Microsoft Mojave experiment which tried to find out exactly what people thought of Vista if they didn’t know it was Vista. The premise was it was the next operating system code named Mojave was therefore by implication better than Vista. The inevitable happened and people voted it better than the rating they had given Vista at the beginning of the interview before they tried the ‘Mojave’ version. There are a number of possible answers as to why this happens but at the root of it all still comes that we are making up our mind pretty subjectively, with brand I think playing a large part in this.
Pile It Up: Google's audio indexing
One of the concepts we cover in our TechnoVision point of view is Googlification: thanks to powerful search technologies, we do not really have to structure our information any more. We just pile it up and search whenever we need something. It is often how people find their way on the Web and it is the preferred strategy for handling mail by Gmail users. Now Google Labs are taking things just a tiny, little bit further with their audio Indexing tools. For now, they have restricted themselves to indexing election-related speeches on YouTube (you may have seen the Google elections Search gadget already), but one can only imagine what the possibilities are once they increase the scope of the search engine. We would love to hear your suggestions for ‘killer’ audio-search applications and we are just starting to think about what this would mean to placed ads.
In the meantime, do have a look at the differences between the two US presidential candidates. You are probably not surprised who talks the most about ‘change’, but a bit more insightful are the search hits for ‘information technology’. There is still some work to do, apparently. And it is piling up in both camps.
IT Creates a Better Place
Every now and then we may have our doubts about the real meaning of technology. We even may be tempted to think that it is true: IT does not matter. But then, there are these little pearls that truly help us to understand the value of the technology and it’s relevancy in challenging the world problems of today. And to be honest, I don’t think Shai Agassi’s Better Place project is a little pearl. It is more like a complete treasury. Better read this absolutely breath-taking Wired article - about his plans for an ubiquitous support infrastructure for electric cars - yourself. Suffice to say that this real-time, self-optimising smart grid is completely dependent on the availability of technology. And it is not even future technology: everything Agassi envisions is based on platforms and systems that are available today and are thoroughly understood.
Less than two years ago, Agassi suddenly left his successful position at SAP. Like many others in the industry, I was highly surprised. Now I am getting his point. Big time. Technology can change lives, can change the world. It is just that we sometimes tend to forget. If you happen to be working on your IT Strategy for next year and you are out of fresh ideas and inspiration: have a look at this Better Place. If it does not instantaneously reload you, I’m not sure what would (well, maybe a full battery replacement).
Ceci n'est pas un commercial
Unfortunately , like some other people, I have not yet completely succeeded in understanding the deeper thinking behind Microsoft’s new commercial, part of a 300 million dollar campaign to improve the company’s credibility and sympathy factor. But it would be all too easy to simply join the nah sayers.
The first episode is, well, definitely different. But let’s assume that it will turn out to be the deceiving prelude to a great series. And it is a good thing that Microsoft did not fall into the trap of competing with the Macintosh ads. Features are irrelevant anyway, as proven by Apple that manages to sell a so-so phone to a huge base of forgiving fans / clients. Or as proven by Asus with their successful, complete trimmed down mini laptop. Or as proven by Google, that shakes the market with their minimalistic browser .
The challenge for Microsoft is not to show that Vista has superior features. It is to claim their place in a changed world in which technology is becoming ubiquitous, or even invisible. So what could you do? You hire Jerry Seinfeld who is known for his ‘show about nothing’. And you create a first ad which sets a stage that is far away from technology, content and shiny features. Bill Gates buying cheap shoes, eating a Mexican churro, socialising with Seinfeld, even waggling his derriere. Nothing about Vista, just a small logo at the end and a few words about a future that will be ‘ delicious’.
That is not a commercial. That is the denial of a commercial. The future of Vista is not Windows 7, it is somewhere in the cloud. You are just looking in the wrong direction.
Think about it, we may have high expectations of the next commercial. French surrealism possibly – they should check with some of my colleagues - or a postmodern version of the Dead Parrot Scene. Seinfeld enters a computer store with a completely crushed laptop. He’s trying to convince Gates (who wears a colourful poncho) that he has sold him a broken computer. Gates refuses to admit: that PC is perfectly fine - it will be delicious actually - Seinfeld is just not getting the point. Yet.
New CTO blogger: Sean Rhody on Wireless On-site Collaboration
We are most happy to introduce our colleague Sean Rhody to you, as he will be frequently contributing to the CTO blog from now on. Sean is Capgemini's technology innovation leader in the US, concentrating on areas such as Web 2.0, social computing, SOA and enterprise architecture. Also, he happens to be editor-in-chief of SOA World Magazine and you may definitely like his columns, including a recent one about 'Jericho Security'.
Sean, the floor is all yours!
WIRELESS ON-SITE COLLABORATION
I just finished several days of training with some of Capgemini’s thought leadership team, and it had me thinking about some of the things I’d like to see in the future from the hardware (and to a lesser extent the software) that I use on a daily basis. We were in a training room, with multiple large panel displays. Sadly, we had to connect our laptops via the normal wired cabling, and in some cases even reduce our screen resolution. Even more annoying we couldn’t have all the displays run the same presentation off of a single source. So this got me to thinking. We were all connected via a wireless router, and it occurred to me that with a little ingenuity, we should be able to broadcast what’s on our screen, through the router, and have either a wireless receiver or a Bluetooth implementation on the panels that would then be able to subscribe to the display. Or even displays, in cases where we would want to display multiple signals simultaneously, or in some picture in picture mode. After thinking on it a little bit, it seems to me that this is something we could see in the next few years.
Wireless is already widespread, Bluetooth is fairly widespread and it didn’t seem like a huge leap to create dedicated video output to wireless. All the pieces already exist or could easily be created. It also occurred to me that this could make sharing and collaborating much easier, especially if direct Bluetooth to Bluetooth connections are supported. Then it becomes a simple matter to share screens on each other’s laptops while working on some joint collaboration. Of course, the next thought is much more involved – if we can share the video, can’t we then collaborate across the desktops, sharing data, applications and other assets? I’ll need to ponder that further, but I’m looking forward to being able to direct my laptop to a screen without the need to cable up.
Sean Rhody
SAP are Twittering, IBM are teleporting Avatars, and Google are Lively
You know that new things are getting serious when the big names in any market start to take a real interest in adding the new to their current position. It seems that some of the new Web 2.0 technologies have reached that tipping point with some of the biggest names in the IT industry. Overall the most interesting part of this is how they see the new ‘non IT’ Web 2.0 stuff connecting to, and functioning with the existing IT stuff.
First up is SAP, who deservedly, or not, are often thought of as being pretty staid, but are right out there in the forefront of Micro Blogging with Twitter. Actually, SAP are doing pretty well in the use of ‘interactive’ technologies to support their customers, partners and their own staff, and have brought into their in-house team some hot expertise from some well known Web 2.0 leaders. My SAP colleagues are active in this for the simple reason that they tell me it works for them in making ‘sharing’ of information, expertise, etc easier. However Twitter is a long way further on from the now fairly mature use of the basic capabilities that ‘Wiki’ and ‘Blog’ based collaboration provides so to find ESME, Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment, a behind the Firewall version of Twitter running on Netweaver was pretty interesting.
The Gold in Chrome
You just know that something massive has hit the technology arena if two of your dear colleagues of the CTO Blog and the Technology Blog have already posted on the subject, while you are still preparing. All on the same day. And Google’s announcement of the Chrome browser – if we should still call it a browser - is definitely massive. What can I add to the observations of Carl and Rick?
Well, just a few remarks. First of all, clearly platforms like Chrome prove the point of the end of the desktop operating system. And yes, if the browser becomes the unified entry point to applications, its capabilities in terms of application support may as well be re-assessed. Obviously, Rich Internet plug-ins such as Microsoft’s Silverlight and Adobe’s Flex already provide a lot of the features we need to build serious, attractive business applications. But now seems indeed a good time to sit back, have a look at that container that we call a ‘browser’ (as in ‘browsing content on the Internet’, the way it started) and see how we can reincarnate it as something better, more focussed.
Secondly, I like Google’s approach to explaining the rationale behind Chrome with cartoons. It is difficult enough to communicate new solutions to business people, and here we have a light-weight, accessible medium that may do the job neatly, reaching out to techies, their business victims and the like. It certainly beats yet another meandering white paper.
Finally, you just have to love the way that Google have developed their new open source software product. Automatically testing intermediate builds just minutes after their release on tens of thousands of different pages, is definitely a case of catching problems early. Read the cartoons, and you will understand. As open source guru Eric Raymond once stated: "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". Guess Google now added something like “o, and a really, really massive test bed won’t hurt either”. To me, that is the real Gold in Chrome.
Olympics 2.0, Miss Bikini and the end of Operating Systems
There’s nothing like a catchy blog title. And some days the inspiration is – well - right there in your face. As we approach the end of the Olympic games, I am quite sure that many employees return to their offices as spoiled consumers of a highly interactive Internet experience. For the first time, we have been able to follow such a major event as the Olympics utilising all the capabilities of advanced, web-based technology. And it is creating a pent-up demand, as it further emphasises the often painful gap between what we already consider as 'normal' at home and what corporate IT can supply at work.
Many regions will have their own, excellent best practices (the NBC Olympics site for example), but in my home country – the Netherlands – the official Dutch Television Olympics website has drawn a lot of attention. Not only because people eagerly want to follow our nation’s neck and neck race with China in winning the most medals, but also because the site is an excellent showcase of how Rich Internet Applications and Web 2.0 concepts combine into a truly compelling result. Have a look yourself (I take it the Dutch language is self-explanatory to most of you) and see how many recent, good IT ideas fluently merge into one experience.
The Only Good Technology is No Technology - 7 Wonders of Invisible Infostructure
The Only Good Technology is No Technology. Now this may sound a bit strange, especially as it comes from a CTO. So let me elaborate. I am suggesting that we are rapidly approaching an era in which technology - of course – does not really disappear, but certainly becomes more invisible. When we no longer realise that we are using complex technology, it liberates us from the urge to understand, build, change and control it.
And it is liberation we desperately need, consumed as many organisations are by an infrastructure that is often complex, heterogeneous, based on legacy solutions and impossible to integrate, let alone manage. In order to create headroom for innovation - both in terms of the budget and in terms of attention span – we must drastically reshape the way we think about infrastructure. We must transform it into a truly Invisible Infostructure: a platform that does not impose itself on us and nevertheless provides us with all the information and services we need to run our business applications.
The Invisible Infostructure – part of Capgemini’s TechnoVision 2012, much more soon - is not necessarily a new concept. But the actual practice is becoming better and better. When I recently showed a new, ultra-thin laptop (it would not be prudent to mention the brand, suffice to say that it almost floated away through the air) to a client, we mulled over what possibly could be next. We agreed it would be nothing: the final version of a product or concept often integrates seamlessly into its environment, effectively becoming one with it.
I thought it would be a good idea to introduce some convincing examples of Invisible Infostructure, not only to illustrate a point but also because I imagine you have many more suggestions. Please share with us your builds on the following 7 Good Technologies. They may not quite be nothing yet, but they will surely trigger your appetite for invisibility.
Jobsification
Unlike I stated before, it’s not once a year we get our desperately needed shot of Apple caffeine. Steve Jobs does not only introduce products at MacWorld, but also appears half a year later at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference. This Monday, the Moscone centre in San Francisco will be packed with journalists, analysts and fans (oh, and probably a few developers), eagerly awaiting yet another hallmark keynote speech.
A new version of OS X? A gallery of external applications for a 3G version of the iPhone? Maybe even a highly recyclable aluminium-enclosed, ultra-flat flux capacitor? It does not really matter. The very prospect of having Steve Jobs on stage showing new stuff creates an unparalleled buzz in the industry. Bloggers will report in real-time on the events and they are presented as heroes themselves, boldly putting us in front row. Journalists sneak into the presentation venue to take pictures of the banners that will be used and immediately a lively discussion unfolds on the Internet what the graphics may mean.
To make things clear: I have seven Macs at home, which is of course excluding all the iPods. And yet I am not the type of hardcore disciple that burns his house if Steve Jobs says that is a cool thing to do (although he never suggested it so far, so I’m not really sure on this one).
But if only, if only we could bring some of that typical Jobs suspense to our IT departments. Technology can bring so much excitement, so much anticipation. Imagine your local CIO, regularly taking the stage - in blue jeans and black turtle neck if necessary - to show an anxious crowd of business users what new, enhanced applications they will be using, starting tomorrow.
Of course, not all systems and solutions fit this approach: actually the bulk should just do its supporting work. But that is the case with Apple as well (ever got into the Unix shell underneath OS X?). The challenge lies in finding these rare elements that genuinelly will touch the business user community, the stuff that inspires and moves.
Just watch the master and see how it is done. We may all want to learn, because IT needs some Jobsification. Our IT strategy needs to be Jobsified. We should Jobsify our applications.
Now if you will excuse me. I am expecting a call from a friend in San Francisco. I have heard some rumours about a code string in Apple software that might, possibly, maybe point to an upcoming name change in one of their products. Thought I should check it out.
I want a Consumer Strike
I know SAP would not even dream of doing it. And when they do it anyway - sort of - they are not afraid for some well-camouflaged delay. And Apple surely won’t. You just go to your annual MacWorld conference and see what Steve Jobs has in store this time. That is just about everything you will get in terms of future plans, versions and road maps.
Don't canibalise your business by flirting too soon with new versions or successors: the golden rule for any product company.
But then Microsoft! We are still trying to get used to Vista, and Gates and Ballmer already start to talk Windows 7. And it is not that far too: we might have it in January 2010.
Big companies such as GM are already considering to skip implementing the presumed obesity of Vista and go for its much more light weight and agile successor. I am quite sure that the announcements that we have seen from Microsoft last week are – well – not particularly helpful in stopping this looming business consumer strike.
Then again, that is just what Microsoft may be aiming for: okay, okay, we got the message, you just don’t really like Vista. To be quite honest, we don’t either. But hold on, don’t go for open alternatives (or worse: go cool). We have something really special cooking for you. It is light weight, blistering fast and has a juicy multi-touch user-interface.
Business buyers on strike, waiting for better times: sounds almost like a smart marketing strategy working out. Or am I overestimating a few people?
Seduced by the Apple: not so invisible infostructure
Did I ever tell you that I am sort of a hardcore Apple fan? Nah, probably not.The thing is, the way they package technology into solutions that touch the heart of their clients is simply unmatched. And the rest of the IT industry can learn from it. Take for example the new Time Capsule product: when I was in London last weekend (unexpectedly enjoying snow and some things happening around a torch) I witnessed it life for the first time in the Apple Store in Regent Street and I bought it immediately trough the Internet when I returned home. It essentially just happens to be a backup device, but it is wireless and looks like a piece of art. It works in the background, in real-time synchronised with one or multiple computers (best of course Apples, equipped with Time Machine software, but even Windows PC’s will do) and it comes with half a terabyte of storage (or a full terabyte, if you want to backup your entire neighbourhood).
In our new vision document TechnoVision 2012 – much more about it soon on this blog – we introduce the concept of Invisible Infostructure: an information-rich business and technology infrastructure that is virtual, remotely managed, self-configuring and delivered as a utility, thus almost perfectly invisible to its users. This device fits perfectly in that vision, but then again, who want this little cutie to be invisible…
Seduced by The Apple again. How do they do it? And how can we copy it to deal better with our everyday business / IT challenges at work? For the very, very first time in my life I consider making a backup to be a cool activity. That’s a monumental achievement. Period.
Sector as a Service with Utilities versus Online Products
I have been struck recently by how many times I have been in conversations about what I think I can best describe as the ‘removal of value’ from products, or at least the failure to create a sustainable business proposition. Most alarmingly most of these stories are connected with new markets and the delivery of products as ‘services’, the very change that the new technologies are being adopted for by the business world. The one that sparked off this Blog piece was an interesting story in the Ecconomist.com about Online Social Networks, with the sub title ‘Social Networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life. That does not mean it is a business’.
The point was that every new ‘service’ even if it pulls in millions of people does not necessarily have a business model, and that advertising cannot be the revenue generator for everything. The comparison point was with mail services, once seen as a key new market with Microsoft buying Hotmail, and various other big names making their own acquisitions, but today nobody has a business model generating revenue from what is still a free service, albeit now enormously upgraded in terms of amounts of storage, etc, to levels that would not have seen feasible five years ago. Why persist with providing it at all? Answer, because it is cheap to operate and keeps the millions of users within the brand and websites of the operators. So to be successful it’s the old rule, something to grab attention, a supermarket might call it a loss leader, and something else to create revenue and profits.
Communications, Convergence or Context as a driving force
The use of the term ICT to represent the addition of ‘Communication’ capabilities to ‘IT’ seems to be slipping into articles and slides. Interestingly this also happened in the late eighties through early nineties as part of the adoption of ubiquitous networking, but then it went away again. Actually this is to me just an extension of convergence, itself another term that has been around for a long time.
The history of technology is one of convergence as previously separate functions and devices merge, today the phone and PC is one example, as is the TV and the Media centre for another, but what started my thinking on this subject was looking at the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium. The mission statement is and I quote; “The Convergence Culture Consortium (C3) explores the ways the business landscape is changing in response to the growing integration of content and brands across media platforms and the increasingly prominent roles that consumers are playing in shaping the flow of media”.
Now what intrigues me about this is that’s it not just technology elements in the convergence, but business and culture too. Okay so it’s not new that technology transforms business, or even culture, but it’s the scale of this transformation that intrigues me. Add the amount of material being created; some one muttered to me that we are creating the entire library of the USA congress every eleven minutes the other day. And this leads me to what I think the C in ICT should stand for; and it's ‘Context’. I find this an under appreciated area which seems to be lost in the ‘semantic’ debate.
IT is essential; but the IT department may not be…
Actually the rest of the statement adds the phrase; to ‘Business Innovation’ which leads to the sad finding in the annual Capgemini CIO survey that IT departments find themselves in fifth place when it comes to innovation in the business. This places them behind Sales, Marketing, Operations, and R&D, but that the driver for all these areas is certainly Technology, and you could say IT, in one form or another. Well, there are potential answers to this question contained within the survey responses about what is wanted, how what is delivered is received, etc, so I recommend reading it carefully with the following thought in mind to interpret the findings.
I believe that there are two characteristics that are confining the role of what should be the skill centre of the enterprise in driving the use of ‘technology’ for the support of the business. First the focus of the IT department has largely been defined as internal support towards supporting administrative operations, usually under the control of the CFO; Second as part being successful in delivering to this scope, IT departments find themselves only able to make business cases around cost reduction. In other words the definition of the role stops them playing a full part in the innovation cycle in the same way as Sales, or Marketing in particular where justifications are normally around increased revenues, market shares, margins, etc.
In the IT department of today Innovation around cost is seldom more than evolution of supporting what is there, and for many CIOs and IT departments they are judged on nothing else, indeed are often hired just for their skills in this role. However what the survey shows is that an increasing number of CIOs recognise that this is not enough, but are frustrated in how they break out to play the role of helping the business use technology more strategically. And that to me is the trap; it’s not the whole business that innovates, its small groups within the enterprise coming across an opportunity to ‘change the game’. That means you have to figure out how to operate an engagement model that allows these people to come to the IT department for support in developing their idea, shadow IT, or even what is currently a down right unsafe practice, into a business valuable innovation as judged by their operational area key performance indicators, and not by the IT department key performance indicators.
That’s less about being awarded the role of ‘innovation’ at a board level, and more about acting to create an innovation support environment within the IT department, more akin to being an internal Venture Capitalist. The basic role of a VC, in the external world, is to develop a promising start-up into a valuable business. Am I advocating money? No. It’s the skill investment, and may be some space on a ‘safe’ server, that’s needed, because many of these opportunities will not be about conventional IT, and a business case in lowering the cost of administering internal operations. In fact they will challenge the existing IT function, and its current role, by expanding it into new fields around new technology. And that means the innovators will have to find their own business case to show to their own department around its goals; sales revenue, market share, etc.
The second element of the trap is that by definition ‘innovation’ is not comfortable to an existing state, so the first reaction of most professional IT staff is to stop these things wrecking the existing systems that the Enterprise relies on. Well, that’s not worked in the past; think PC, Smart Phone, Internet, and now Web 2.0, so all this does is drive innovation based on new technology underground where it will expand until there is a very real chance that it will cause a serious problem to the existing systems. Supporting or enabling may be painful in the short term, but in the longer term it’s safer!
With that thought in mind now read the survey, and see what it suggests to you about the role, and the issues, that CIOs and IT departments are grappling with, and in some cases succeeding around. In its self it may be a help as the reference document for an internal management discussion on rethinking resetting some of the key performance indicators for IT within the Enterprise.
Great Expectations; but how effective?
I am not sure if it’s the time of the year for surveys, a sign of impending worry about 2008 as a potentially tough business year, or maybe a year of technology change, but there are a lot of surveys about. Gartner’s Massimiliano Claps has a pretty through and structured approach out on how to approach cost cutting complete with what he refers to as a ‘Cost Reduction Score Card’ so if you are looking for technology driven improvements it’s a good starting point in my opinion. I have also seen the draft of the Capgemini CIO survey due out in March, and this shows many CIOs to be rather concerned with the way their role, and that of the IT department in the enterprise is, or should change, in response to using some of the new technologies as business tools.
However, the most interesting one for me came from Information Age publication on Effective IT under the title of ‘Effective IT 2008’ sub titled ‘the technologies and services behind today’s most dramatic business success stories’. This is a definite must to take a moment to go through because it asks two questions and compares the answers:
- what are your priorities?
- how effective has been your deployment?
And it’s the latter that is so interesting and frankly not usual to find in a survey.
This was based on them surveying exactly what CIOs had chosen to adopt in 2007, and starts the first surprise with only four of the top ten priorities, or intentions, for 2007 adoption actually having been carried out:
- Mobility
- Help Desk Mgt
- IP Infrastructure
- Server Automation
two were not even listed at all let alone given a priority in the 2007 list
- Collaboration
- ITIL
and the remaining four were listed but not in the top ten priorities:
- Virtualisation
- Standardisation
- Thin Clients
- and the key last one? The appointment of an IT to Business Manager to handle the changing relationship.
Take the list of the ten most effective things that CIOs think they did in 2007, remove Standardisation for development, and all the remaining nine in one way, or other, are linked to the way people want to use IT, and most probably new technologies in the business. Some are directly linked like Collaboration with most the consequences of deploying and supporting, i.e. Mobility, Software as a Service, IP Infrastructure, ID management, etc. What we call at Capgemini the ‘Hidden Infostructure’ meaning a complex set of abilities that allow extreme ‘agility’ in users working practices.
Turn it the other way around: look at the ten least effective things? Mostly the worthy IT driven activities from open source, to portfolio management, information life cycle management, even offshore and outsourcing, are all in the list plus the interesting addition of the ‘formal deployment’ of Web 2.0.
My conclusion, taken with the discussions CIOs and Business Managers, is that operating the traditional IT for the Back office well does not win any prizes, or even interest, from the business end, it's just an expectation that it will be there and working. The users are now driving the IT department in a different direction and the rewards are for doing things that directly support what they want, and it seems to be less about applications and more about ‘collaboration’ and ‘mobility’. All of this represents a ‘new’ set of challenges, and if the survey is to be believed, relatively unexpected in the planning cycle for 2007. No wonder CIOs turned for help to ITIL which came from nowhere in the 2007 priorities to being the eighth most popular adoption in 2007 and presumably led to appointing an IT Business Manager to handle the introduction.
It seems that the expectations of the business are changing; yup must run what you have now well and keep costs down but don’t expect prizes for ‘doing your job’. Instead the pace seems to be fast enough to be forcing change in planned IT strategies, as well as actually planned IT projects, towards doing direct support for users who want to change their working patterns. This seems to be where IT will be ‘marked’ by the business as to whether or not you are meeting ‘expectations’ ‘effectively’. Mmm, easy to say, but cost based optimisation of IT does not sit well with delivering new technologies into challenging new environments, no wonder we see a significant number of IT departments needing a new role to set expectations realistically!
Seems to be the time to read ITIL very carefully indeed, and decide how it might provide what I call an ‘enabling’ framework between IT and the Business to lay out some structure for both to work within for a testing year ahead.
Wait and they will come, but don’t stop them first!
I got some interesting feedback on my post ‘Imagination in the use of Web 2.0 thrives’, of which one point was about the need to work differently when using Web 2.0. This pretty well crossed with two other events; the first was a really funny advert on US television which shows a father and son in a new car; and the second being sent a link to a blog on five questions a teenage kid might ask if starting work at your business today. You really need to read this, and then think long and hard about why we can’t answer all the questions. The only really response is ‘because that’s the way it is round here and we can’t change it’.
The blog comments were almost polarised between the ‘why would you not work in a Web 2.0 manner’ and a ‘where would you get the best pay off for adopting Web 2.0’. And there in lies the issue, a traditional enterprise with all its investments in IT and allied to that the ways of working, needs a reason to change, whereas a new start up business just wouldn’t be bothered with the need to build up all of this. I already know of at least two companies where the classical implementation of an Intranet has been replaced by using Facebook. Actually it wasn’t a question of replacing; these enterprises have cut the cost and time of building infrastructure out by going straight to a Facebook based enterprise. You can add to that the use of SaaS to build out the rest of their enterprise systems and the whole package is a generation different.
An answer that is really not going to be possible in a conventional enterprise, or is it? The more I have looked at what works and what is challenging the more I realise that it's less of a replace or integrate challenge and more of an add on a different capability. This quite frankly is the accommodation that we have had with each new generation of technology, and why the Mainframe not only lives, but its use still is being extended in many cases. If it works don’t bother to come up with an argument to replace it. The challenge is more subtle and it’s the reason why my CEO thinks I have become a business consultant, (no I don’t like that thought either).
What I have learnt after living through two previous generational shifts – Mainframe to Mini and Mini to PC – is that you can’t push the technology, you have to figure out the business value and allow the users who really want that value to ‘pull’ through solutions. That’s why I have kept focussed on this point, I know, and believe those of you reading blogs like this one, know it’s the right technology and due to its inherent rather simplistic nature are not deeply troubled by the technology deployment issues, but how do we get the Business to see the light and use it? Solve that one and then we get into the interesting details of what and how issues of pure technology.
My answer is let the ‘kids’ and the ‘aware’ got on with it, but by kids I mean the young professionals, those same guys with MBAs that pulled in the PC technology that last ‘changed the game’ are doing it again right now. And if we are facing a tougher year for all business activities in 2008 then in the search for new markets, cost savings, etc then the barriers to acceptance will just collapse. Why? Because whilst you still have the existing market activity it pays to carry on with what you are doing now, push away disruptive activities ,and optimise the current way of doing things; When the market isn’t there that’s when it becomes necessary to rethink things and consider really innovating. Just make sure in the meantime you haven’t killed off the ‘kids’ and their under cover activities with new ways of doing things.
The TV advert? Well the father doesn’t understand all the new features on the new car, but it doesn’t matter because the old controls are still there so he can still drive where he wants to go. His son can’t drive, but annoys him by knowing what everything is, Bluetooth, iPod link up, Satellite radio, GPS, etc. It ends with the father ordering the son out of the car to stop him playing with everything.
Boundaryless IT Specialist
I am currently in San Francisco. Just around the corner here in California, the Republican candidates for the presidency are debating, trying to establish who is the most conservative while the Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are holding hands to show off their unity.
The Open Group is having its own show-off. The quarterly member meetings and the Architecture Practitioners Conference are better visited than ever, and for the very first time there is also an IT Specialist Conference. The reason: the direct availability of IT Specialist Certification: a unique, open program which assesses senior IT specialists on people skills, technical skills, experience and contextual awareness of adjacent areas such as business, architecture and project management.
Based on the real-life proven, internal certification programs of Capgemini, IBM and EDS, this open program is destined to quickly become a world-wide standard. And we’re only too sure that the world is waiting for this: the key success factor for organisations to collaborate is still the quality of their individual employees. Technology-driven change highly depends on the proper abilities, experience and skills of IT specialists. These need to be real, demonstrated attributes, so we are not talking about isolated book knowledge or having passed some shallow multiple-choice tests.
Outsourcing the intranet
I’ve been thinking for some time that a logical conclusion to the plethora of free (or at least cheap) social web applications will be companies simply outsourcing their intranets. Delivering a few portlets (or Open Social applications) into iGoogle or Facebook would seem to solve the problem of connecting your employees with the business, and has the additional benefit of helping employees connect with other employees. However, I was still surprised when I woke this morning to find that Serena has adopted Facebook as their intranet. The technically feasible has entered the realm of the possible.
Strategy and differentiation
A lot of us place a great deal of hope in enterprise applications. After all, applications have been a great source of differentiation in the past. In a world where globalisation has firmly taken hold and we're all under intense cost pressure, everyone is searching for that edge that will push up margins or grab a little more of the market.
The poster child for this is Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart made a massive investment in a data warehouse during the early eighties (somewhere around US$110 in 1980's money), mining the data for insights into supply chain behaviour that enabled them to create the most efficient supply chain in their industry. Half the savings this delivered was passed directly to the customer in terms of every day low prices, and the rest if history. The application enabled Wal-Mart to differentiate, while the investment required (not to mention the delivery effort) was a barrier to competition. IT strategy was, effectively, application selection strategy.
Today, a lot of companies are taking a similar approach, pinning their hopes on a best of breed solution that will help them stand out from the crowd. I find best of breed to be a funny term though, as it carries connotations of being better than the rest when it really means no worse than anyone else. That application-centric approach to IT strategy doesn’t work any more.
Making the most of our most valuable asset
As others have pointed out, enterprise applications can be annoying beasts to deal with. Most of us are familiar with a time sheet application that seems to require more effort entering the time than it did in accruing it, or the order management application that requires four screens of data but spits out an error and forces you to start again unless all the data is perfectly correct. (Hard to use procurement applications make it difficult to buy stuff, though this might be how they are intended to function.) Enterprise applications, everything from time sheets through to portals and collaboration platforms, seem to put usability last on the list of priorities.
Un-Babel
I am not much of a Bible expert, but I do know it were the descendants of Noah (the guy who did all the difficult things with shipping animals, really the very first logistics consultant) that founded the city of Babel on the plain of Shinar. There, guided and united by their leader Nimrod, they built a tower that was destined to reach the heavens. This was apparently not in the Divine Master Plan and through a heavenly intervention, the arrogance was quickly taken care of: everybody started to speak their own, unique language and in the confusion of tongues that resulted, collaboration was no longer possible. Soon, the people of Babel were scattered across the world, all speaking their own, incompatible languages, no longer able to communicate, let alone create something useful together.
Am I mistaking, or have we just found the original bloodline of IT Specialists?
Let’s face it: the persistent tendency of IT Specialists to design and build megalomaniac structures, seems certainly to be genetic material. And the ability to speak the same language is not particularly overdeveloped. The latter becomes especially apparent if IT people try to have a meaningful dialogue with their business clients. After all these years of reluctant coexistence, it’s still mainly a matter of gesticulation and throaty sounds.
iPodification leads to Nothing
I have always argued that Steve Jobs should never touch that iPod Scroll Wheel. Simple things should stay simple. But who am I to argue when he continues his fascinating ‘delete the button’ act with the new iPod Touch: essentially an iPod (and Wifi enabled Internet device, really) with just a touch-sensitive screen to control it?
It’s yet another compelling demonstration of the ongoing iPodification of computers: we start to get used to ‘non computer-like’ devices as the primary access channels to information, transactions and interactions. On one hand, these devices become smaller, flatter and simpler. And on the other hand, we may find ourselves sitting around it, running on it or hitting with it.
The Rustling Trees of Tafiti
Tired of all these years of using the Back-button? Being haunted by Cookies? Bored with the so-so user interfaces of mediocre web applications? Want to experience that Vista Feeling but don’t have the courage to buy the product for at least two years (if anybody wants to sell it to you in the first place)?
We may have a nice link for you.
Almost sneakily, Microsoft has put a new search application online. It’s obviously a beta and it is built as a front-office on the well-known – but not so heavily used – Live service. But more interesting is that the application is based on the new Silverlight platform, essentially a browser plug-in, supporting gorgeous looking, highly interactive, multimedia-based applications. Rich Internet Applications really, in the style that we learned to know through Adobe’s Flash and Flex.
Admitted, that was quite a piece of infamous name-dropping in just a few sentences (Live, plug-in, Flash). But Tafiti – this is the Swahili word for ‘researching’, are we seeing some Ubuntu-inspired activity here? – gives a revealing look at what the next generation of user interfaces may look like. Just think about the mouse and information will pop up somewhere on the screen. The stunning graphics are a true delight. Watch the moving tree view, with the search results sort of fluttering around. Could bring tears to your eyes.
The question - of course – is if these are tears of happiness or of sheer misery.
Second Life Big Bang
Let’s be honest, it’s not even fun anymore to make fun of Second Life. That would be like, stating the obvious. Well, ok, one for the road then. I think this little YouTube video clearly makes the point.
We’re in the mid of summer and I’m currently between two short holidays abroad. My hometown seems to be completely deserted, nobody is on the streets, the roads are empty and nothing interesting is for sale in the few shops that are still open.
Finally, real life starts to resemble Second Life.
Mesh Network Bunny Ears
I like simplicity. I like browsing through the specifications of the 100$, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) computer, now called the XO. Of course, the paramount importance of the XO is its potential to help children from all over the world to learn and communicate more and ultimately lead a better life. But it is also a compelling illustration of what happens when you design a computer experience without having to deal with backwards compatibility or pre-existing notions of how computers are supposed to work.
The XO is a small, easy to carry device (almost like a school bag). With its round shapes and bright colours, it sort of reminds you of the pre-Y2K version of the Apple iBook. Also, it has built-in Transformer capabilities, enabling it to quickly morph into a standard laptop, an e-book that can even be read in full daylight or a gaming console. It is simply fun to look at, especially when its mesh network ‘ears’ are folded out. This will definitely appeal to children, but many features of the XO may even impress the most spoiled business PC users: there are more lessons contained in the XO than we think at first glance.
iPhone launched in Second Life
I thought, let’s discuss a bit about Apple.
Of course, there is no point in adding yet another hit to iPhone’s current Google Quotient (187 million, and counting..). So this blog-item is not about the iPhone. But mentioning the iPhone a few times, will definitely increase the visit count of this site. Especially when we combine mentioning the iPhone (or simply Jesus Phone, if you like) with mentioning Second Life. This could be done with an announcement like ‘Second Life citizens can now buy virtual iPhones; they have to wait for several hours in a virtual queue in their favourite shopping mall after which they can exchange cool, fake phone calls with their newly acquired devices; the little 3D iPhone retails for an amazing 499 Linden Dollars'.
Sorry about this. I promised myself never to discuss Second Life again – after summer nobody will anyway - but it was too tempting not to draw your attention to some of the practical experiences I have had with yet another Apple innovation. A few of you may recall an earlier blog-item, in which I described the new Nike+ combination of an iPod and a RFID-enabled sensor in your running shoes. I considered it to be much more than just a metaphor for applying new, fresh IT ideas to business.
The 100 Best Web Apps are …and you voted for them!
Well it’s a kind of alternative build on my colleague Ron’s blog piece on what the CIO, or CTO, should try out on as a personal use before recommending wider adoption in their enterprise. Out there is a site that found the 100 best web applications based on votes from 489,467 people. This started with an initial exercise in open nomination providing a list with an incredible 5000 nominations, too big to be sensible, and it seemed possible that there might be some sad people nominating their own creations! So the site editors cut this back to their choice of 250 web apps, and invited a further round of voting to find the final list of the 100 Best Web Apps.
An excellent case of using the principles of Web 2.0, and even social computing, to create, and share experiences, but just pause for a minute to reflect on the scale of this. Firstly that there were slightly more than 5000 recognisable web apps that could be accessed as part of the nomination process, try that rate of progress in the creation of regular client server applications at a similar stage of their technology cycle as a comparison. The second point is that half a million people found this site, and decided to register, and vote.
Take a look at politics in your country, and the turnout for elections. Point made?
The CIO Dog Food Wikinomics Experience
They say that dogs eventually start to look like their masters. Would this pertain to CIO’s too? You tend to think so. More than ever, the CIO is reporting to the Chief Financial Officer again. Shocked by the economic downturn and the increasing pressure of regulatory compliance, management seemed to have good reasons for that.
I wouldn’t dare to stigmatise anybody, but we can safely assume that CFO’s have not been selected for their uncontrolled, wildly imaginative and innovative ways. Otherwise, they would have become video clip directors or fashion designers. And it’s easy to see how an understated, restrained view of the world cascades through the chain of command: sooner or later, some CIO’s start to look and act like accountants.
Dreadful indeed.
Especially when recent research proves that boardroom executives once again see the innovative value and growth potential of IT. And they are relying on the CIO to provide the spark of inspiration. In practice, I see many CIO’s struggle to articulate a compelling technology-enabled vision, let alone that they successfully reach out to the business side of the company and convince it of the transformation potential.
Web 3.0 gets meaningful by building on Wikipedia
I have voiced my concerns that the rise of Web 3.0 in the need for the Semantic Web might mean a return to a whole series on approaches that have been around for quite a few years now without actually getting anywhere meaningful. I was hoping to be proved wrong and that new approaches would emerge that built on the new capabilities and thinking that have emerged, and are still emerging.
I am delighted to find DBpedia.org which describes its self as ‘querying Wikipedia like a database’ and goes on to offer the explanation; DBpedia.org is a community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia and to make this information available on the Web. DBpedia allows you to ask sophisticated queries against Wikipedia and to link other datasets on the Web to Wikipedia data.
What comes first? Structured, or Unstructured?
Its seems we are in the middle of a boom market for Business Intelligence Management, or what ever term you want to apply to the gathering and use of Information and Knowledge for the support of business decision making. On one side we have a generation of investment in knowledge management tools, on the other side we have Web 2.0 based approaches, and that’s before we start on the detailed debate of what is structured and unstructured data etc. I want to explore this debate from a different direction, what is happening and working in two different areas.
Some Cracks are appearing in Web 2.0 basics
As you may have gathered by now I am a big believer that standards play a crucial role in the current wave of technology, and that this has allowed what I have called ‘shadow IT’, (parallel activities to the official IT systems), to develop with reasonable safety. Perhaps more accurately this can be described as ‘technology literate user driven IT’, as I am far from suggesting that all users are either capable, or should be allowed to do what they want. The big safety net to me is standards, as this allows users to be given more personal flexibility in how they choose to use technology whilst ensuring that the poor CIO can have some piece of mind by knowing that the standard establishes some boundaries to behaviour.
It’s therefore somewhat alarming to be watching RSS fragmenting into multiple so called standards. RSS has been one of the building blocks of the whole Web 2.0 approach, and today it is increasingly coming into use as a core mechanism in designing dynamic information distribution systems within our enterprises. A look at Wikipedia shows the issue somewhat too clearly. At the end of the first introductory paragraph they list three major families and group the versions together as four separate release specifications; RSS 0.9, 0.91, 1.0 and 2.0.
Does the desktop matter anymore?
It seems that Web 2.0 has entered the business main stream now that established business dailies—such as the Australian Financial Review which had an article on wikis (light weight, online, blackboards) the other day—are publishing on the topic. For a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media only in 2004, referring to a perceived second-generation of Web-based services that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users, Web 2.0 seems to have already established itself as a force to be reckoned with.
One of the dramatic changes Web 2.0 brings with it is a shift from desktop applications to shared spaces—collaboration delivered as a service over the internet. This is a dramatic break with the desktop centric world we’re all used to. Rather than installing an application and then typing in obscure strings of characters to contact other users, with a few mouse clicks on a web page we’ve created a new shared space (wiki, project room, blog, …) and invited friends and colleagues. We might be starting a new project with an online project management tool, bringing a virtual team together across time zones, countries and even organisations to design a new product. Or perhaps the space will be only used for a couple of hours to resolve an organisational issue. Web 2.0 has obvious attractions in the enterprise, as the capabilities it provides go directly to some of the root causes for some of the most vexing problems we’re faced with collaborating across time and space, or even across the room.
So, does the desktop matter anymore? If our work moves online, then what happens to the applications installed on the laptop that I have balanced on my knee? A lot of the old productivity applications are being embedded in Web 2.0 web sites. Word processing documents, video, audio, spreadsheets and even presentations are being moved off the desktop and onto a service that lives out in the cloud that is the internet. We’re even seeing the emergence of what are being called WebOSs, which promise to provide something like the current desktop experience complete with productivity application but all delivered via a web browser.
Not only Google but also….
We do all seem to be fixated on Google as the ‘best’ search engine, and it’s true that it really seems to be the best ‘general purpose’ search engine around. If we add Yahoo, MSN, and Ask, to the list then market researchers suggest that the four so called ‘big brand’ search engines account for 99% or more of searches. I am just as much guilty of making these de facto choices as anyone, but I came across this really interesting article on ‘the top one hundred alternative search engines’ and have since started to make more use of some others, and think about search engines again in terms of their role in the developing new people-centric Web 2.0.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
We talk about the end of business as usual, mash-ups and how the ground rules in our respective industries are changing. But how do we use these technologies to change our own business? When it comes time to replace that core banking system or enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution and we cannot see any other option than creating another major project and application. These systems are big, and it will take big projects to replace them.
Our current approach to IT is the product of how we have engaged with IT in the past. Projects were large, which makes sense when applications needed to support a lot of business functionality. Delivering even a simple solution was a major challenge, and we quite rightly engaged IT as a major engineering task. The size of the problems we would tackle—the amount of functionality in a solution—was simply a product of the economics of software development. While that original valve and punch-card solution used to predict a U.S. election (correctly, despite what the critics thought) didn’t deliver a lot of business functionality by today’s standards, at the time anything smaller wouldn’t have produced a useful solution. IT is a lot more capable today but the same rules apply; significant slabs of functionality take a correspondingly significant effort to deliver.
And now we have reached the nub of the problem: we’re still thinking of IT as an engineering challenge when the rules of the game have changed around us. As Albert Einstein eloquently put it, we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them! Approaching the development of a new core banking or sales and operations planning solution from the familiar engineering viewpoint will result in a similar engineering centric approach. We need to do some thing different.
77 Million Innovations
I have to confess I am old enough to vividly remember how Roxy Music made its entry into the pop music scene. It must have been early in the seventies, the steam machine had just been invented and most homes were still lighted by candles. Ceramics teacher Brian Ferry thought the moment was right to create an entirely new band, as an eclectic mix of post-modern noise, absurd and yet semi-literary lyrics, powerhouse glam rock and a totally over-the-top visual presentation.
Now why had nobody thought of that before?
Quite an innovative band they were, and with classics as Virginia Plane and Do the Strand (“It’s the new way, that’s why we say, do the strand”) they shook the fundaments of the establishment. Undoubtedly, the most eye-catching band member was Brian Eno - sort of a 70’s version of Lord of the Rings’ Legolas – who produced the weirdest sounds out of a primeval synthesizer. It’s this same Eno who – 35 years later – has created a spectacular digital work of art that is both a great illustration of the power of mashing up through new technology and, even more important, contains an important innovation lesson: don’t just try to improve or renew what you were already doing, reinvent your fundaments instead. These are the real breakthroughs.
Perfect Project in Perfect World
Admitted, Linden Lab makes all the right moves, bringing the software of Second Life to the open source community. Immediately after the long-anticipated announcement, a splendid wiki is launched, which includes a well-elaborated FAQ section (“How can you prevent malicious programmers from finding flaws in the code to exploit security problems?” and far more important “won’t somebody steal my Linden dollars?”). Also, it features a great portal which links to everything there is to know about the system, ranging from the overall architecture to the actual source code and naming conventions. In essence a very useful example of the way the Internet and Web 2.0 nowadays should be used to support any (repeat: any) development project. With thanks to all the lessons that open source has taught us for the last few years.
All the same, it is definitely something else – the rudimentary style of a wiki – compared to what you typically will find in Second Life. Personally, I think we find very different target audiences in these two environments. And that is despite the claim of Linden Lab that the transition to open source will enable the end-users and developers of Second Life to collaborate much more effectively. Playing a role in Second Life won’t particularly attract programmers. Especially not C++ programmers (I only learned today that Second Life is predominantly developed in C++). Actually, I wouldn’t even have the faintest idea what C++ programmers would be looking for in Second Life. It is sort of difficult to envision them polishing for days on the right chin and nose, the most ravishing hairdo, that nice suit for a virtual marriage ceremony or yet another idyllic feng shui garden with flowering paths, meditation cushions and wind chimes.
Innovation happens elsewhere. Doctor’s prescription.
I truly like to watch it: companies that during the course of the years transform into incarnations that just do not resemble the original any longer. Often, it is a sign of a strong urge to innovate. Also, it can be the demonstration of a grinding lack of realism or simply a proof of an inflated ego. Or all of that. Either way, there’s always something exciting happening near companies that are reinventing themselves.
I voted. Yes, we know.
Just to make sure you are aware: today we have general elections in the Netherlands. Of course you are – like the rest of the world – holding your breath and anxiously awaiting the results: we all know that changes in the Dutch government will have a profound impact on the global economy, politics, and culture alike. And I’m not even mentioning the Antarctic ozone hole.
It is sort of pity though, that some of the voting computers appear not be entirely safe. A recent investigation suggested that a certain type of e-voting machine emits radio signals that can be tapped from several dozen meters. A very smart hacker would theoretically be able to detect the images on the screen, thus monitoring the choices of voters.
The Real Java Milestone
I honestly don’t know what to think of it. Sun finally released its Java base code to the open source community. According to Sun’s Executive VP Rich Green this signifies nothing less than a ‘milestone for the whole industry’. That’s definitely one way to put it. Others might add that it is also confirming something we already knew for some time: there is simply no way you can make money with developing and maintaining a programming language.
Anyway. So it’s a milestone. I guess that fits seamlessly in the huge pile of remarkable moments that we have shared with Java in the past ten years or so.
It’s just that I’m still hesitating to determine what exactly are the most impressive milestones.
Maybe it is the appearance of the first applets: these miserable pieces of code that took far too long to load in your browser and then treated you to mannered animations or a laughable attempt to make something resemble like an input dialog. With the advent of applets, the still young principles behind the lightweight browser lost their innocence for good. And judging by the screaming cacophony of non-standardised, yet very arty ‘plug-in’ user-interfaces in the browser of 2006 (thanks to all the enthusiastic followers that brought us ActiveX and Flash), this historic Java moment still echoes every day.
SAP TechEd '06 TakeAways (II)
Although the next event in Bangalore is almost taking off already, I still have to fulfil my promise to provide you with some additional takeaways of the recent SAP TechEd conference in Amsterdam. I’m terribly sorry it took me so long. What can I say? Browsing through all of the sessions handouts took me two weeks straight in a row and then – of course – there was no time for blogging left. One thing is for sure: the audience of the TechEd conference is changing even faster than SAP’s software stack. And interestingly enough, the average age of the attendees seems to increase, together with the introduction of new, yet unknown communities into the SAP universe, such as Business Process eXperts, Enterprise Architects and, yes, even some Java programmers.
Floated for days, couldn't blog
I guess every blogger uses it sooner or later: the excuse that explains why it took some time to write a new item. I prefer to just point you to this item, which describes many credible (“I was busy”, “Traveled abroad”, “Caught the flue”) – and less credible (“I forgot my password”) – excuses. Noteworthy are also the comments, that contain many additional resorts, including the very useful “I got a life” and, of course, “Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I was attacked by a press gang. I managed to escape when a pirate crew ransacked the cruiser we were on and set me adrift. I floated for days before coming back ashore.” Any other, even better suggestions?
SOA & Web 2.0: Cage Match
Two broad camps are forming (or have already formed) in the information technology community at the moment. On the side of big business and enterprise software we have service-oriented architecture (SOA). On the side of the Internet, democracy and empowering the individual is Web 2.0. Arguments are flying about the differences (or similarities) between the two camps, with pundits claiming everything from differences in the protocols underpinning each approach through to the grand philosophies they espouse. Depending on whom you choose to listen to, Web 2.0 and SOA are either on a collision course, or simply different names for the same thing. I think that they two are complimentary, rather than in conflict, and the businesses that can successfully marry the two will be the real winners.
Don't touch that Scroll Wheel
A Blackberry that crashes. I didn’t even know it existed. Until our guys from the IT department recently gave me the newest, shiniest version which – in their opinion – has a lot of additional features which I just must have, like - you know - being a CTO and all.
I soon discovered what this means. The device is heavier and features a revamped user-interface which is different from previous versions, apparently for no good reasons. It somehow feels slower too, although I can’t really point out why that is. What is more crucial: all the new capabilities clearly demanded for more complex software and this time, the developers at RIM seem to have overestimated themselves. After a few days of use, I started to encounter a decelerating Blackberry and then – finally – these good old buffer overflows came in. I must admit the panic messages are clear and crisp. But they always appear just before the system freezes completely. You’re about to perish. Have a nice day. Not really comforting.
The Boundaryless Enterprise
There's an interesting tectonic shift in IT these days. For decades we've focused on applications and data, with users sitting at the fringe poking the application to make it do things (register a lead, update customer details, create a purchase order, generate an invoice, and so on). But running through a list of the new generation of technologies we see that the one thing they all have in common is the primacy they place on users.
Web 2.0 technologies (wikis, blogs, etc) make this primacy explicit: each technology is designed to support teams of users as they collaborate and work together. Composite applications have a similar focus, providing users with clearer and more coherent views into company business data and functions. Even service-oriented architecture (SOA) has a similar effect; collecting differentiating business logic into BPM and rule enabled services where it is easier for the user (the business owner or SME) to understand and manage it. And the approach even extends to how we deliver software, with the agile family of methodologies placing the user front and centre.
With this thought in mind, I found it interesting that Oracle purchased Sigma Dynamics the other week. Sigma Dynamics is designed to augment users rather than simply supporting them, providing insight and suggested paths to follow rather than simply data or information. I think that Oracle's purchase points to the next front that's opening up in enterprise software.
Mashup Programmer loves Bastard Pop
My 13-year old son recently told me that he wants to be a computer programmer. A devastating announcement that threw me back into deep, introspective thoughts. You start to imagine all sorts of things. Where did it go wrong? Did he have a nasty accident in kindergarten and the teacher never dared to tell me? Does he eat enough fiber? Shouldn’t I have talked more with him about all the great things you can do in life?
Let’s be honest. I was utterly depressed.
Finally I came to reason, about three or four weeks later. I started to discuss with him. My son had not yet an idea of what programming language he wanted to learn. Some fuzzy MSN buddy had suggested him to dive into C++. It’s remarkable how calm you can stay under deep pressure. I felt this almost Buddhist joy of forgiveness when I told him – without shouting – which crimes have been committed in the past twenty years in the name of C++. That many of his crashing applications have been written by C++ programmers that love to do silly, funny things with computer memory. That the so called buffer overflow has inspired a whole generation of hackers. That C++ teaching books are no longer allowed in hand luggage at Heathrow. That the programming language is ridiculously complex, like its modern brothers Java and C#, and that you have to be an expert in maths to understand it.
Pandora's Box Contains Mystery Meat
It’s good to see that the personal music channel Pandora has been chosen in Time’s new list of really, really cool websites. I happen to like the site, although I’m still having some mixed feelings. Surely, Pandora provides some fantastic functionality. Using deep data mining and adaptive filtering – and after asking for just a few favourite songs - it manages to create a personalized radio channel that only plays good music. Well, to my ears that is, which in this case according to Pandora means “electronic roots, down tempo influences, use of electronic pianos, subtle use of electric keys and trippy soundscapes".
E-mail Haunting
For some of us, it is already depressing enough to return from holidays. But things really get worse if you have to spend your first couple of working days in a pool of e-mails. Mind you, I’m not depressed. For now. But nobody would have objected, given the fact that I had to deal with more than 750 serious e-mails (which is of course without the spam).
Just a few years ago, I still had the guts to compose the following Out-of-Office message:
“Dear Writer. Thank you for your e-mail message. I am currently on holidays. As you will very well understand, when I am back I cannot dedicate my scarce time to filter out the few messages that are still relevant by that time. And just to make sure: I am convinced that your message would be one of them. Anyway, for my own protection and wellbeing I will automatically delete your email right now. If you still wish to reach me, you may consider resending your message once I have returned. In the meantime, I wish you strength and honour. Have a nice vacation.”
Worked perfectly fine.
Processes, rules and things in between
I was commuting the other, catching up on my reading, when I came across the following from David McGoveran:
We talk about business processes, business transactions, business events, business activities, business metrics and key performance indicators, and even business services. The language IT uses is now a bit more familiar to business users, and they’re beginning to expect great advances. It’s really too bad they’re going to be disappointed. Unfortunately, though the words may sound like they refer to business, the software industry uses them to denote technology. We’ve merely plastered over the gap between business and IT by mimicking the words used by business, all but ignoring the details of how they are used.
This is something that resonates with me. For a while I’ve been thinking that there’s a hole in our current technology stack. We claim that BPEL, WCL, rules etc provide all the tools required to capture and automate business logic; however this creates an articifial divide between decisions (rules) and tasks (processes). We seem to focus on the macro processes and the micro rules and forget about the interface between the two, the area in business logic where a great deal of a company’s differentation can reside.
Just what is SOA?
The industry is buzzing with SOA being positioned as the next big thing. As with all new technological fashions SOA promises to delver better, faster, cheaper IT support than was possible before it arrived on the scene. However, all this hype seems to have resulted in a great deal of confusion around just what SOA is, and what it isn’t. Is it a new generation of middleware based on web services and the WS-* family of standards? Is it a new generation of process modelling tools based on BPEL et al? Is it something to do with enterprise architecture? Or is it just another over hyped technology?
Too Much User Interface
Many of you are planning to go on holidays soon. I know I am. And I’m confident that you don’t want to spend your valuable free days doing perfectly nothing or – even worse – read that Da Vinci Code for the third time. So during the next week or so, I will point you to some books that you may want to pack in your suitcase. Yes, books. Good, old-fashioned paper. There’s nothing else left in these scarce moments in which you don’t have a high-speech Internet connection nearby. And it’s just fine too. Otherwise you would miss that brilliant opportunity to read Head Rush Ajax.
It’s not a book that I would recommend to you because of its metaphysical depths: it actually introduces you to a programming approach to building highly interactive websites and in the meantime you also figure out how to sell snowboards, you build a coffee maker and you even watch a boxing match.
2.0 Considered Harmful
I just wanted to state that I used the 2.0 concept in my previous blog-item in the sense of - well - plain irony, I guess. Before you know it, you end up being flamed by a large community that simply cannot cope any longer with all the cooked up hype of IT trends. Oracle still seem to hold on to their claim of the 'SOA 2.0' concept. So does Gartner (with a 75% probability, that is). And although I don't mind at all merging service-oriented architecture with event-driven architecture - which is the very essence of the SOA 2.0 idea - I can easily imagine that already more than 350 individuals signed the "SOA 2.0? No thanks" petition.
The Augmented Running Experience
Innovation Happens Elsewhere. Now that companies are searching for the way back to innovative value, it’s worthwhile chewing a few introspective minutes on this tiny, little message. Yes, companies can spend their entire IT budget on consolidating the infrastructure, simplifying their systems and even on introducing service-oriented architecture. Thus they become lean, mean and completely flexible and adaptive businesses.
But then – sooner or later, after having celebrated this apparent success enough – the big question will pop up: are we going to do anything useful with all that we created, or what?
Good Guys and Bad Guys
I guess I'm sort of late in discovering certain things. For example, it's only been months since I found out about 24, the television series that won every imaginable award and is now finishing its 5th highly successful season. In 24, special agent Jack Bauer is humiliated, hurt and embarrassed more in one hour than most business consultants get to endure in 10 lives. When watching the first three seasons on DVD, I gradually began to notice something remarkable: in the offices of the famous Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) everybody is using trendy Apple equipment, including many 30-inch Studio Displays and even a real Cube, used by hero Jack in person. The opposition however, always uses shabby looking PCs running Windows XP.
So good guys use Apples. Bad guys use Windows PCs. Life can be so simple.
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