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iPhones and Adroids and Windows, Oh My!
I was reading an article on CIO.com today about Apple in the Enterprise: Breaking Microsoft’s Grip and found that while it was interesting, it sort of really missed the point. One would assume from the headline that Apple is driving into the enterprise and pushing out Microsoft at the level of core apps or operating systems. Well, not exactly…
The article is misleading in that the reality is that Apple (and Adroid) are actually EXPANDING the overall technology spend and enhancing productivity through new products that were poorly penetrated or did not exist. They are talking about iPads and iPhones (and I will include Android phones and pads into that) which are seeing hugely increased penetration into the enterprise. Well, tablets are new to the market, and are NOT replacing primary computing sources, but are creating incremental spend for incremental productivity. Smart phones are much the same, though clearly they are pounding away at the Blackberry market share.
Now one could certainly see these products as beachheads into the enterprise and assume that Apple will expand outward and start pushing out core computing assets that are traditionally Microsoft based from an OS and application standpoint… but I don’t know that this can be assumed. I believe that new devices are adding value to enterprise users creating new spend and frankly, simply enhancing the overall productivity of the enterprise user, not devaluing the core Microsoft application in any way, in fact, I find email even more valuable when I can access it in many ways, and accessing it on my phone and iPad do not threaten the lock Microsoft Exchange has on email in any way as I see it. In fact, we all seek apps for our devices that best emulate Outlook, so our email can behave the way we expect… the way Microsoft has trained us that email should look and behave.
It is a fundamental truth that IT environments are becoming mixed, and more complex. The other side of that coin is that IT environments are becoming more user oriented, more focused on providing multiple methods of access via multiple devices for our email, files, and applications. This trend will only escalate, and I’d not worry too much about Microsoft… I think they will be just fine, and if they recognize that THEY have developed the user experience we all expect and benchmark by (like Microsoft or hate them, their enterprise apps are the de facto standard) then they should be able to continue to own the critical back end systems and PC user experience, especially if they embrace the reality of the multiple different ecosystems (some that are competitive) that in fact benefit from and perhaps even rely on their products, and feed off of their user base.
I think that we will see more integration in years to come, not less, and more diversity of technologies all sharing the same base of applications and data. I don’t think that the cloud will be the primary source for most of this, but our good old servers running our core applications will, all accessed in a tightly integrated fashion by Apple, and Android devices.
When you put it all together, you definately have more ways to experience
Happy Computing
Richard Brunke
In: Tech Education
CFO’s Lack Faith in CIO’s
CIO.com had an interesting article today regarding how IT is viewed in the corporate environment by the CFO, whom IT typically falls under. Not surprisingly (to me), the picture is not too rosey…
Here is a direct quote from the article:
“According to the 2011 Gartner/FEI study, only about a quarter of the CFOs had confidence that their own IT organization “has the organizational and technical flexibility to respond to changing business priorities,” or “is able to deliver against the enterprise/business unit strategy.”
“Only 25% see the CIO as a key player in determining the business strategy,” said Gartner analyst John Van Decker.
In addition, less than a quarter of the CFOs felt the IT department “delivers the technology innovation needed by the business,” or that it “has the right mix of skilled people to meet business needs.” And in the final act of disdain, only 18% of the CFOs said they thought “our IT service levels meet or exceed business expectations.”"
Now, let’s take this down a notch into the world of small business. Business owners and decision makers often don’t trust IT, and the above quote would summarize what I have heard time and again from smaller businesses too. The problem is that internal IT groups tend to fall into certain traps over and over again.
The first trap is the technology trap. IT leaders come up through IT departments. They LOVE technology. Unfortunately, they often forget that IT is NOT ABOUT TECHNOLOGY any more than home building is about hammers. IT is about meeting business needs with a technology tool set. The tools are NOT front and center, the business opportunity is. Here is a hint – as a business person, I don’t care about the spec. I don’t care about how cool it is. I don’t care about how many virtual machines it can run. Sorry. I don’t. What I do care about is how any particular solution can be directly tied to ensuring that my business remains productive. That my technology supports my business plans. That my IT investment is relevant to supporting my business needs. I want happy, productive and supported employees. I want a business that runs smoothly.
The second trap is empire building. How many times have I heard ‘I need to hire another staff member because we don’t have such and such key skills in house’? Frankly, I don’t want to chase every changing skill requirements with full time employees. Nor do I revel in the knowledge that my IT staff is 150% utilized 3 times per year, but 30% utilized the rest. Most businesses would NEVER hire an in house lawyer for contracts, and another for HR law, and another for intellectual property law. That would be insane, right? While we know we may need each of those skills, and need them badly at some point, we don’t hire them to sit around until we need them, we find a firm with the breadth of experience we need and have them on retainer. Pay for what you need when you need it. So, why do we think differently about IT?
It is not a hopeless battle, however. In reality, CIO’s (or any IT manager) simply need to step back and remember that they are business support, not technology support. They need to understand that the fundamental job of IT is to provide the most efficient solution to business problems available. Not the coolest. Not the most cutting edge. The most efficient. Value can only be determined in IT by understanding the needs of the business and aligning the cost of the solution and the nature of the solution with the overall culture and direction of the business. Get better at that. Put the focus on that. Talk in terms of the outcomes of projects, not the technology involved in them. Talk in terms of return on investment, and be honest about it. Remember that IT is a service organization, and that no one outside of IT likely cares deeply about the technology. I know, it hurts. They care about the outcomes though, and if you focus on that, you will build value, and you will build trust.
Lacking trust between IT and business decision makers is a terrible thing for everyone. I certainly keep this front and center when working with my team and setting a corporate culture. We talk endlessly about our mission of creating happy, productive and supported customers. It was strange at first, to run an IT services company and NOT talk about technology, not talk about us and our capabilities, but to talk about the ultimate desired outcomes our customers have in simple terms. It is transformational in fact. Because, we understand that at the end of the day, the one thing we can agree on is that we all want to experience…
Happy Computing!
Richard Brunke
In: Tech Education
Microsoft 365 released
Lots of news today on Microsoft 365, their new cloud offering, which released today. For those of you tracking this, this was previously known by the awkward name of BPOS (Business Productivity Online Software). Basically, it is Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communications Online and Live Meeting (the last two used to be called Lync and combines instant messaging and web conferencing) and the Office suite.
Clearly this offering is set to go head to head with Google Apps. The Microsoft offering is more expensive, but there are some BIG advantages. Chief among those is the fact that most of us are familiar with them. We know how to navigate and use Microsoft Applications. Can you learn a new interface? Sure you can, but at the end of the day, all pro this and anti that aside, I use my computer to be productive, and I’ll pay a bit more to be productive. I know how to use Microsoft software, so I prefer it, and am productive using it. If I save $100 a hour, but waste hours in productivity because I have questions, or don’t know how to do something, or can’t get support as easily, I’m not making a good decision.
Aside from this there is another real advantage – the Microsoft suite, unlike Google, does not need an online connection to work. The applications have offline modes and will sync when you are back online. In the real world, that is sort of a big deal.
All of this aside, the real question you should ask yourself is – do I need this? Is this compelling? The answer is ‘it depends’. There are scenarios for small business, or some types of large enterprise, where this may make tremendous sense. There are also questions around data storage and its configuration that MUST be considered before you implement. There are still lagging legal questions around data protection and ownership in the cloud, concerns on uptime (remember the Amazon issue???) as well as the simple inability to have cloud apps cleanly integrate to non cloud apps (need that Line of Business application to talk to exchange?).
I’ve been saying it for two years… cloud computing is coming, but it will not be the panacea promised, nor is it really going to be about cost savings in my opinion. It is about fit. It is about productivity and business needs and capital usage. It is a complex question that deserves some discussion. Talk to your IT manager, or contact us and talk to a consultant. Whatever you do, look before you leap.
Be it in the cloud or on your PC, always practice
Happy Computing!
Richard Brunke
In: Tech Education
Looking for an answer to expensive workstations?
We serve a lot of architects at ISOutsource. One thing that always amazes me is the desktops that they have to buy to be able to create and render their drawings on. Those things are like top of the line gaming machines, and they cost a fortune (as much as 4 to 5 times what you may be able to buy a mid level desktop for).
One of my consultants recently implemented VMware View for a few clients and WOW did we ever get a great response. I normally don’t like to advertise for any particular solution, but this solution is a new twist on the old thin client concept, enabling businesses to use older, or less expensive machines coupled with cloud based infrastructure to complete heavy lifting computing tasks, and to do so QUICKER than they were on their top of the line machines!
What really struck me about this was the simple concept of how having the right IT partner advising you can be critical. This solution will enable many of our clients to save thousands of dollars per desktop and improve productivity. That is simply huge. The ROI on the consultation and the roll out is HUGE. It is the ability to have a large team with many pockets of knowledge that helps us make sure we see this stuff coming, and make it available to our clients. In fact, we are having a seminar on this internally in the next week so that the information can be available to every one of our consultants who is interested. That is what we mean on our site when we talk about smart, fast and vast. Smart people, fast response, and vast knowledge.
I’m not even going to attempt to describe the solution here. Take a look at the VMware site and look over this, or better yet, contact us and ask us to come talk to you about this solution (or any other solution of course) and how it may help you save money and improve productivity.
Cheaper and faster computing = happy computing!
Richard Brunke
In: Tech Education
IT’s Biggest Money Wasters
When thinking about IT budgets, it is important not only to look at new requirements, but also to look inside of current expenditures and make sure that every dollar is being used to its best purpose.
Last week I saw a great article on the biggest sources of waste associated with IT and technology, and thought it worth summarizing.
The 6th worst money sink in IT is failed projects. While this covers a lot of ground as a subject, the simple matter is that IT organizations have reported average project failure rates between 30 and 70 percent. Even at the low of 30 percent, this is an amazing number, considering IT projects often represent a quarter or more of an IT budget in some years. Clearly, project management and planning are critical here.
The 5th worst money sink in IT is, somewhat surprisingly, excess bandwidth. We all love massive bandwidth, and it is often the cure allfor network speed issues. The point in the article is that there is a declining curve of value at some point where we are simply way overestimating our real ongoing bandwidth needs. Think of it like having a 2,000 minute plan on your cell phone when your average use is 500 minutes. The rest is just waste and profits for the data line provider. We all WANT to believe we need it, and feel good having it (more IS better right???) but at the endof the day, many companies are buying bandwidth for an imagined peak usage that may exceed reality by several orders of magnitude.
And on to number 4 – uncontrolled email usage. Yep, email. There are two aspects of this mission critical piece of all of our lives that costs companies so much money. First, it is a productivity draw down. Clawing through hundreds of emails to find the critical hand full is a daily part of our lives, and it is expensive. Spam filters, etc, play an important role, as well does having smart inbox management policies and rules in place. The hidden costs, however, lie in storage costs, licensing, costs, and the ongoing battle against viruses, malware, anddata protection. Make sure you understand the costs of storing and backing up those unlimited email inboxes and decide if perhaps some limitations and rules are in order. Not only does storage cost money, but backups cost money, often by the gigabyte of storage, and the larger the backup, the slower the recovery, and unlimited email storage in a large company can really hamper disaster recovery times. There are about 250,000,000,000 (250 BILLION) emails sent a day. Think about storing and backing all of that up!
Moving on the the IT money wasting winners circle!
In 3rd place we have high level product and software service agreements. Although many of us shy away from those expensive in home warranties for our appliances, knowing they are huge profit makers for the manufacturer, we gladly sign up for 24/7, 99.999% uptime, 10 minute phone response, and 4 hour onsite repair guaranties. In general, the bigger the promise, the higher the cost, and in most cases, we really don’t need the excessive service level. Take a look at your service plans and warranties and align them with your actual business needs. IT systems are business tools, so reduce the fear factor and think of them as business tools and pay for service levels associated with the criticality of those tools to your ability to transact business.
In 2nd place we find an old favorite – The Paper Chase.
OK, the paperless office has not happened. We love print outs. But, can’t we at least try for the LESS PAPER office? The average employee consumes 10,000 pages per person per year. In terms of the paper and ink costs, that is about $80 per person. While not a lot individually, it adds up across a company. What is really frustrating on this one is that it is estimated that over 50% of those 10,000 print outs end up in the garbage the very same day they are printed! Money thrown away every day. Make a policy, educate your employees and in general, try to make sure that things like emails and simple reports are viewed digitally, not in printed copy.
And the added benefit here is that reducing print outs is one of the simplest and effective ‘green’ efforts you can undertake!
Well, I know you have read this far primarily because you are dying to see #1. I did this whole thing in reverse order just to ensure you would read this far!
The #1 money waster in IT is unused and overbought software licensing! Studies show that the average enterprise has between 25 and 75% of enterprise software licensing is unused or underused. ERP systems are an even bigger problem, as they are very expensive, and studies show that 50% of installed ERP modules are not used.
Do an audit, look at all of your applications and make sure you are only paying licensing for the correct number of employees. Evaluate all components of your line of business applications, and make sure you are not paying for unused modules. All of these costs add up, and they add up large amounts. An example (a rather large one just to make the point) is Proctor & Gamble who assessed their Oracle and SAP systems to trim unused modules and save $30,000,000 annually.
At the end of the day, IT can be a significant part of your budget, but spending IT dollars on things that add no value is simply not acceptable. Talk to your IT department or provider andwork through these issues, then ask them what other areas of IT spend you can look at to create savings and more efficient use of your budget dollar.
Happy (and less expensive) computing!
Richard Brunke
In: Business, Tech Education
We Need iPads!
A quick post here, not so much about iPads, but more about the emerging trend of employee consumerism in IT. Like it or not, IT is not just about ROI anymore, and IT departments can no longer hold the lid down on all of the incoming technologies and always pick a ‘best fit’.
IT will have to be more flexible and more attuned to the reality that technology is about productivity AND employee satisfaction.
Good article to take a look at.
Happy Computing!
Richard Brunke
In: Business, Tech Education
My Blackberry has been Bing’ed!
If you are a Verizon Blackberry user, you may have noticed that suddenly, and without warning, your default search options were changed to Bing earlier this week. When you search via your BlackBerry ‘Start’ or ‘Go to’ page is now Bing.
First of all, don’t panic. You have not been the target of malware, or a prank, or any other bit of random reprogramming. All is as Verizon intends it to be.
Clearly, Microsoft and Verizon made a deal of some sort, and clearly not everyone loved the idea. I’ve certainly heard some feedback in the last week about the change, most of it simply related to having the choice taken away. Take note, you can still enter ‘Google’ or any other search engine you want to, but it is an additional step. In the grand scheme of things, while having choices reduced generally does not make anyone happy, this is most likely not the worst thing that will ever happen in the world of technology.
This type of behind the scenes marketing deal makes sense from a dollars and cents standpoint, I am sure. It just feels a bit intrusive. That being said, it is hard to believe that this will reduce the functionality of anyone’s Blackberry in any way, after all, although we all love having more choices, either Google, Bing, or one of several other search engines will serve perfectly well to deliver up the information we are looking for.
I think it is safe to say, that in a world where consumers are subject to marketing in everything from the internet, television, and even their movies, it is not a surprise to see marketing enter into the ubiquitous world of smart phones. As these types of partnerships and marketing programs mature, it seems likely that we will see a lot more sponsored links, preferred vendors, and pre-loaded applications on our smart phones.
In: Tech Education, Technology
From the ‘Technologies to Think About’ File…
With the proliferation of data from multiple sources, hard drives are filling up faster than ever. Frankly, even with reduced costs of storage, content is being created at unprecedented rates, and the cost to store and back up this mountain of data is becoming a real concern to business managers. Stack on this the increasing need to find green IT initiatives, and you have real issues – but at least these issues have real solutions available!
The answer, which is rarely spoken of in small business, but commonly utilized in larger companies, is data deduplication. Data deduplication is, at the simplest level, a process undertaken by software or a hardware device to find duplicate data and replace that data with a marker pointing to the original data. Think about a file or segment of a file that is saved in 30 employees personal file folders. The deduplication process finds the original, then puts a pointer in each of the other locations, cutting the space to 1/30th approximately of what it was on the storage device with no change to how the user experiences their data.
The benefits are significant:
- Has been shown to reduce size of back ups by up to 90% in some environments
- Reduces required disk space thus reducing disk expansion costs
- Reduces energy costs as less hard drives are utilized, less heat produced, etc
- Restore times reduced due to less actual data in data or disaster recovery
If you are interested in data deduplication as part of a cost reduction, a ‘green’ initiative, or just as a sensible way to manage growing data stores, talk to your IT staff or IT consultant about it. There are numerous choices on the market with different costs/benefits to fit your business needs.
Personally, I think that the combination of reduced hard drive requirements coupled with the positive impact on total data being backed up alone would be a motivator to take a hard look at these solutions!
If you would like to learn a bit more, take a look at HP’s data deduplication page for some additional information -
Happy computing!
Richard Brunke
In: Tech Education, Technology
