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IT Trends In and Out of Downturn
An anonymous reader writes "Washington Post has an interesting article talking about how IT industry is changing its business models to survive (IBM: "Pay As You Save"; HP: universal printer driver; Consulting weak; Oursourcing booming), as well as how outsiders view the downturn (Merrill Lynch: it's just another bust after PC and mainframe, but the good thing is, "each 'wave' has so far represented a tenfold increase in the number of technology users."). I'm particularly interested in the outsourcing story. It might explain why IBM will benefit and other vendors like Sun Microsystem which don't have a strong service arm will suffer."
Well, don't ask EDS about it. And IBM seems to be a little sheepish on it, too. Outsourcing IT doesn't appear to be very strong lately, either. I don't know why that'd be focused on as a strength. (Although comparitavely, it isn't THAT bad as other things.)
The problem with outsourcing arrangements is that companies only see savings at the beginning of the arrangement. Sure, they get to fire their expensive permanent employees. But guess what happens when something breaks? You end up with people who don't know how that particular company does business. I've seen this happen in three places. Average problem resolution goes from hours to days as users and staff try to figure out which call center halfway across the country to address their problem to.
There's the oxymoron of the day: "Save as you spend". Wow.
1. You get what you pay for, and good help is hard to find. Getting good constant support coverage is expensive.
2. Scale can help. Like insurance spreading the cost can help manage bumps, and smooth out the actual required resources.
By outsourcing you could save money by not buying more service then you need, and even lower your support if all you need is someone 'on call' incase "something happens".
But like any pooled asset, there will be times it isn't available, and it isn't like having a dedicated team to take care of stuff
"I don't think the computer industry will truly mature until 2015, 2020," he said. I don't understand where this comment fit into that article. BUT - I do not believe this at all. The technology industry changes each and every day, I don't believe that it will "mature" at any time, if at all.
I'm in a services organization and business is poor right now.
Yes, service orgs make lots of PR for each signed deal, but they are over many years and sometimes they get cancelled in advance of completion.
Also, services have more costs associated with them than do software or hardware sales.
To some extent, accounting of service contracts can be misleading by both front-ending the benefits and by buying other service orgs to obtain their profits but spreading out the acquisition costs.
It's not a comfortable business to be in right now.
this is not a sig
The computer techs shouldn't need to know the business.
The business or 'customer' should clearly specify their requirements. The techs should build it.
If they just guess at your requirements they need to know the business to get a good guess, project takes too long, everything's a mess and the end solution sucks.
Yes I work in design, yes I know nobody does it this way, but they should.
Companies outsource because they don't have the political will to control costs themselves. So they pass it off to another company like IBM.
The result is usually the reduced cost you were looking for and severely reduced service levels.
I once consulted for a very large Insurance company, which decided to outsource it's legacy IT staff, approximatly 300 people.
About a third of them left and they were the most knowledgable, each averaging 20 years experience on the systems they maintained.
A small modification that might take any of them a day to build, test and install would take me three weeks. (it's hard to compete with 20 years of domain knowledge).
Skilled IT workers are not assembly line workers. Outsourcing should be for easily replaced resources.
Okay, does anyone else see a problem with this? First, an analysis of the tech market from a stock analyst. Second, the analyst in question works for a company under investigation for bogus analysis of market trends(click)? .NET propaganda. Oh wait, I suppose that Merril Lynch is in bed with Microsoft too.
Third, as I don't quite remember the pc boom, or the mainframe boom as being discussed by stock analysts, shortly after whatever previous bust I am even more likely not to believe this. Especially when the speil for the next great major advancement sounds like
From my experience Sun does excellent support. Not that they can touch IBM, but who can ? But both SUN and IBM are miles above HP/COMPAQ in terms of onsite technical expertise, and documentation. Rarely does IBM or SUN ever call in 2nd level, and I've never had them need a 3rd person, the 'NEW' HP guys need an assistant to call in help...It has been a LONG while since I dealt with an HP Unix system so I can't comment on support there.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Generalizing somewhat, there are FOUR options for a company currently in "high tech".
One - Sell hardware. Generally billed once, though often financed and perhaps with a "support package" attached
Two - Sell "software". Usually licensed with an annual "maintance" agreement in addition (speaking of enterprise software - in consumer terms this is the annual or bi-annual upgrades/updates that you have to pay for)
Three - Sell a "service" (think ASP's, telcos, ISPs - generally billed on a periodic basis - often monthly, but also quarterly or yearly plans exist).
Four - sell "consulting" or services. This is further subdivided into "project work" or "outsourcing". Projects are generally of a limited duration and for a specific purpose, outsourcing usually involves the takeing over a company's IT staff, equipment, and processes - and is generally of a very long term duration.
There are, of course, variations to all of the above - but these are a basic choices that a company today faces - and all of these are driven in tandem by corporate needs.
New software usually meant new hardware, plenty of services needs, and lots of projects and outsource contracts to go around.
However, we are still suffering from the combination of Y2K, the "dotcom bust", and diminishing returns on technology investment (or at least the PERCEPTION of diminishing returns).
Y2K caused many large corporations to move up spending - which they had planned to do in the past two-three years, to 1999 so as to put new software and systems in place in advance of Y2K. In the course of doing this major corporations also steamlined and simplified their internal systems - often reducing by 50% or more the number of applications they supported internally.
Further, many corporations standardized on fewer platforms - and reduced variation within their corporations.
In 2000 it appeared that perhaps the "Internet boom" would be the driver of future investment in a post-y2k world - and indeed many corporations spent a lot of money on Internet/e-commerce projects - however though a lot of money was spent on these projects, and some companies did see big gains - far less money was spent on Internet projects than had been spent on ERP or other similar enterprise wide projects.
Further, as a new field - most of this money was spent on consultants and projects. Some was spent on services (hosting packages, additional T1s etc) - but less spent on software packages or additional hardware.
Software companies and hardware companies alike have not, in general, offered compelling new systems that provide powerful reasons for additional investment - corporations look at the desktops and servers that they have, note that most of their systems are underutilized, and see little reason to return to regular upgrade cycles - rather they see little to be gained from expensive upgrades - and much to be said for focusing their resources on using what they already own.
So, this in turn, means that corporate internal resources are increasingly available for internal projects - reducing still further the need for outside consultants on a project basis.
What then is the solution?
First - technology is driven by providing VALUE - i.e. providing systems that help people make money (by saving them money or making people more productive). Software vendors should focus on what their tools "really" need to do - and make compelling enhancements in those areas.
Second - We may be seeing a transition from a mostly growth industry to one that will be more stable - there is still money to be made, but annual growth rates of 30+% are probably a thing of the past.
Third - companies should focus on building long term value added relationships with their customers - if you make your client money on an ongoing basis, that is generally a recipe for continued and mutually profitable business - in the "internet boom" many service/consulting firms forgot this - they made money, but their clients just lost money - now those clients are often reluctant to spend further funds with those firms (if the firms are even still around).
So what do I suggest - focus on value added, focus on building systems that customers want, and offer them in a model that both you and your customers gain value (i.e. don't price in such a manner than it is impossible for your client to make money, or conversely don't price your products, services, software, or consulting below what you need to make profit - neither route leads to long term success.
As the president and founder of a software and consulting firm started in 2000 I have observed this up close and personally - at present, my firm is focused on out consulting practice - looking at how we can continually add value to our clients - and still make money doing so.
-- Join us in Chicago May 1-4th for MeshForum -- writer, historian, tech geek, entrepreneur, internet junky since '91 --
This industry is shooting itself in the foot by bringing out a new 'technology' every 7.5 seconds.
Companies might start spending more on Information Technology if there were just a few months stability in the industry such that the media and C*O's can learn what's available, actually understand what things like 'XML' are, what it can do for them etc. and get round to planning ahead.
At the moment, this is industry is doing everything but helping C*O's see ahead by bombarding them with new whiz bang mega hyped new 'technology' all the time.
Let's just chill for a bit.
A little intro, I was one of the many that got laid of in IBM essex last year. There were about 6000 of us in all. Roughly 1/3 - 1/2 the engeniering work force.
IBM will survive because of it's products. Not services. The IBM service model is based entirley on the Hardware that it sells. The reason people are buying into it is because it is like insurance. Pay IBM a smaller amoutn and if anything tragic happens they will fix it. If nothing happens you are not out as much money as if you kept a full time person to deal with your IBM mainfrane systems.
I'm tired and sick (with a cold not mentally) so that's all I have to say. IBM will live or die by it hardware. It's service arm is only part of the PR machine.
A big story around here involves CSC laying off a few thousand people who had been working as part of a huge ($1B) contract that involved outsourcing numerous IT functions for United Technologies Corp (UTC). Reading the press coverage, it looks like a classic outsourcing problem: The project scope widens as the competitors bid each other down. Ultimately, some lucky company finds themselves as the winner[?] of a huge obligation to supply all kinds of services for a price may not be realistic. Quite frankly, I find it hard to believe that traditional IT departments could ever waste as much money as the outsourcers claim they can save.
There is a time and place to outsource certain functions, but these comprehensive deals are for the birds. To me, the key is an exit strategy. If you don't have enough non-outsourced resources, you can never fire the outsourcers. You can expect service and price to shift from the ultra-competitive model of the intitial contract to the "gotcha" model of the renewal.
I worked for the State of Connecticut in 1998. At the time, Governor John Rowland was most anxious to outsource all of state government IT. He was already despised by the state labor unions, and this was simply the icing on the cake. Rowland campaigned very hard to convince a skeptical legislature that big money would be saved. In the end, one of the largest outsourcing proposals in history collapsed when Rowland realized that the bidders were promising savings in later years, and there was zero (or negative) savings in the early years. By the time those years arrived, the alleged "savings" would be mostly funny-money comparisions based on hypothetical pie-in-the-sky projections. If Rowland could have saved a single dollar up front, he would have happily taken the deal if for no other reason than to screw the unions. Outsourcing has been a tough sell in this area ever since. When you can't fool the politicians, who is left to fool?
Economics tells us that when an entity chooses to specialize and excel at a particular thing, not only does it maximize its own profit potential, but it also makes the competitive environment better through comparative advantage. Why should a widget company develop or even maintain its own technology staff when there are companies out there (pick one, IBM, HP, Microsoft, etc) who produce products and service offerings that will do it better than that company will ever be able to. All the technologists out there I am sure have seen this. Ever worked for or with companies that are out of their league, hire or maintain a technology staff, and almost ALWAYS outsource to consultants in the end because they don't know what they are doing? What the big players are doing is commodotizing this need by providing software packages that don't require ground-up programming. The consultant is still needed to implement and customize, but the "employee" or the "Dilbert" in-house shlep's days are numbered.
GetTheJob.com : Nothing but Real Jobs.
Having worked for both a company that outsourced services and a company that handled outsourced services, I've seen both sides of the spectrum.
Companies need to learn what to outsource and what not to outsource. My personal opinion is that large scale projects need to be internal, with only small, specialized sections outsourced to the appropriate firm.
Small business can benefit immensely from handing off, for example, their websites and design services instead of bringing those services in-house. But does a large, multinational firm really benefit from turning these services out to another company? More than likely not, and in the long run it will cost them more.
The last company I worked for handled the website and design services for several large companies, on top of many smaller businesses. The large companies spent, on average, $300-400k per yer for web management and design, whereas the smaller firms only maxed out at around 12-40k per year. Proportionally these services where the same. The larger firms would have benefited from hiring and keeping internal these services.
Just my $0.02.
-===- "Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserver neither" -===-
You'll know when the software industry matures. It is when the next release of a product introduces more new features than new bugs.
Look's like a great service s'long as you don't get through to TrollGeek.
.....
"Ok Betty, click on Start, then Run, then type 'cmd' and press Enter'.
"Done that."
"Now type format c:
If you're only running Exchange? Sure. But we used to use Lotus Notes, and it was used for several important applications. Our Notes admin knew a LOT about the business by the time we finished building it. I'd build the backend in SQL, he's build the front end in Notes, and we could move data either way.
And, equally important - if he doesn't know the business, why the hell not? It'll make filtering spam easier, it'll let him know the best times to do maintenance on the servers (one of my Unix servers was turned off for 3 months out of the year!), etc, etc. It also helps the admin add value to what he does - "wouldn't it be handy if you were emailed every ?"
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
There will be no IT turnaround in 2003. Let me repeat that: THERE WILL BE NO IT TURNAROUND in 2003. So what your telling me is that if the economy rebounds in 2003 that suddenly the IT spending floodgates will open wide? All the .commers can come back? I think it will be even worse that that: companies are currently learning that they can live without the latest and greatest. Which means, of course, that when the economy does come back, that big companies (HP, SUN, IBM) aren't going to get the big IT paychecks they think they're going to get. Which means of course, that all these layoffs are more or less permanent.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
Sun's position in the marketplace is really starting to slide and not having a strong service division is the least of their problems.
I work for a company that is Sun reseller, and recently they have been adding more bureaucracy and "rules" to their resellers. This causes the sales force to waste a lot of time and limits them from achieving a better sales position. Recently Sun "required" us to send a sun certified tech to a new product announcement in a town 8 hours away. This three day trip was a complete waste of time as the same knowledge could be obtained in one hour of reading information off their site and spend the remaining time billing hours to clients.
Sun is also slitting its own throat with their pricing. Several year's ago they use to argue price/performance, which was a strong argument for their products. Now with the improvements and wider sector approval of Linux, they can't make that argument. The only area where they have any strength in the marketplace is the very high end server and possibly security for the types that like to have a company behind a product. There market for the most powerful 5% isn't that small, and I think its only a matter of time before other products overtake them in the price department.
You may have a point. It seems that the more experience I gain in the IT industry, the more I realize how little true IT knowledge is in the marketplace. The problem is, can business management tell the difference yet?
If an actual requirement is transfering 37 MB files this should be addressed.
A shared directory or server of some sort is likely possible to solve that requirement.
Or you should have them explain why this is a requirement and if modifying behaviour is the appropriate answer.
Having some knowledge of what goes on is valuable, but not nearly as important as the design requirements themself.
This may sound a bit trollish, but I mean it more in a Devil's Advocate sort of way... Could the fact that this 'downturn' is lasting so long have anything to do with the majority of tech writers/industry pundits/whatever continuously writing articles of doom for the tech industry? I mean come on, anyone that is reading a column like that on a regular basis already KNOWS it's going to take a while for IT spending to pick back up, for companies to rediscover the value of their IT dept, from the PC techs to the UNIX security admins. It's almost like these writers are practically trolling for hits themselves, isn't it? Let's face it, reading the tech news online is just as monotonous as watching eMpTyVee or CNN.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
I think, however, that you could do something like that on a ala cart basis. Outsource stuff piecemeal. Remote 3rd party backup, remote 3rd party network monitoring, etc... The customer expectations are different that level. The interface issues are smaller and more manageable. And in more narrow specialties, you have a better chance at getting ecnonomy of scale.
In the MBA world mature means the industry has stopped growing in sales volume (read $$$$), it has nothing to do with technology. It also means whoever is left is just slugging it out for market share. Think laundry soap or soda crackers for examples of mature industries.
What I don't get about outsourcing is how its less expensive, especially at the operational level.
Based on the zillions of meetings we've had with the honchos, on-site help desk functionality is manditory. OK, how is it *cheaper* to have someone else come in and piss of the users than to hire someone to do it as an employee?
An outsourced employee's wage is likely on par with their niche, so you're paying that *AND* you're paying the rather large markup that the outsourcing company charges.
I can believe that an outsourced employee might in special circumstances bring higher level of technical knowledge, but that's seldom valuable in an operational situation, usually in a planning or roll-out situation.
My understanding from the conversations I've had with PHBs is that outsourcing was a big deal in the mid-90s, but a lot of places got burned. The savings weren't that great and the opportunity costs were high. Has that kind of thinking changed?
Process optimization is simple.
1. Write down what you do.
2. Remove wasteful steps.
3. merge/automate redundant steps.
4. Improved solution.
Properly explaining what you want to have done helps. Looking at what you are doing step by step will give the best solution. Sometimes it isn't even a technological solution.
Folks,
While we may be in an economic slump right now, we are forgetting that there are upcoming technologies that will likely drive a second tech boom in the second half of this decade.
I cite the following:
1. Cellular phone companies have started on the road to 3G cellular phone technology, technology that could completely transform the way people use cellphones. Imagine bi-directional 384 kilobits/second data transfer, about the same as low-end SDSL, but operating in a wireless fashion and well beyond the reach of 802.11b Wi-Fi; this could allow people to upload and download data fast enough that even high-resolution digital photographs or circa VHS quality video can be transferred quickly. To keep up with the competition from Europe and Japan, expect major rollouts of 3G cellular technology by middle of this decade. Because of the bandwidth requirements of 3G, this will need massive investments in infrastructure to support these new phones.
2. The mandatory imposition of digital television in the USA in accordance to the Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC) standards by late this decade. This will mean a lot of new investments in television broadcasting hardware, especially when you have to implement these standards for both over-air and cable broadcasting on a scale far beyond what we've seen so far.
3. The beginning of the switch from IPv4 to IPv6 addressing. Much of our current Internet hardware infrastructure is not yet suited to support IPv6, and many of today's computer operating systems don't yet support IPv6, either. As the switch to IPv6 accelerates there will be considerable investments needed in both software upgrades and network infrastructure upgrades to be IPv6 compatible. Yes, I know network hardware built within the last two years are IPv6 compatible but there is still a huge fraction of installed hardware that is not IPv6 compatible yet.
I would not be surprised there will be a surge in demand for IT hardware and services as these three technologies rapidly rise in usage by the end of 2010.
The answer to this might be succeptible to empirical study. On the one side, some bright, capable people like regular hours and good benefits; on the other some like irregular hours and independence. And - a different question - some may be more bright and capable in the one circumstance than the other.
But the central question is: What business model brings in the best IT people, in whatever formal (or informal) capacity? And on the informal side, if you bring in open source techies, to what extent are they bringing in a large part of the open source community as unpaid accomplices, and how much brilliant capability comes in by that route?
Of course, your business model also has to consist of - well - a business. The .com VC model of "Pile a bunch of sugar here and let the bright, capable ones feed on it, the concentration of them will be enough for success" was stupid, stupid, stupid. Still, given a going business, it's getting the best crew on the oars that matters, not whether their economic relationship to you is that of slaves or sportsmen or enlisted men - except insofar as the relationship type is coherent with engaging a superior crew.
And the faster more business crew effectively, the more their competitors will try to emulate them, and the happier techies in general will be with our prospects - except for the incompetents (many of whom seem to presently have jobs with hosting services) who should be driven out of the field.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
* Vertical Integration is the practice of owning all of the aspects of your business. Rockefeller slaughtered his opposition by buying barrel manufacturing capabilities to store the oil, railroads to transport the oil, etc., all of which lowered his costs and provided a larger degree of control over the major factors immediately outside his core business of selling oil.
I'm constantly amazed at how often businesses don't seem to consider "purchasing" as a viable job title when it comes to their I.T. departments.
The fact is, when you don't assign purchasing and researching tasks to a specific member of your I.T. staff, you end up with a scattered mess of software licensing, fiascos such as the one you described with the bundled system w/19" monitor and RAM upgrade, and many other disasters.
With my previous employer, we had that issue, starting out. It was just generally understood that practically anyone in a salaried position could put in a purchase request, and then their direct manager had to "approve" the order before it was finalized. Seemed simple enough, except people in engineering would always dream up all sorts of hardware and software they "could get lots of use and productivity" out of. Of course, their boss would agree that it "sounded like a good plan" and sign for it. Then, I.T. would get stuck with all the support hassles if the thing wasn't playing nice on our network, didn't work as advertised, or what-not.
Even when we started trying to enforce a more strict policy of "only I.T. purchasing I.T. related goods" - things were still a mess. One person would prefer a certain vendor they used in the past, while another I.T. worker was trying to buy through someone else to keep up a minimum yearly purchase agreement (to lock in a discount).
Something I am seeing in my company, as a CEO and after spending the past year traveling around the midwest talking with other IT staff:
.Net applications and ship huge amounts of money to Redmond.
Java on Linux will lead the industry out of the bust, in at least one area.
1) By providing companies with business systems they can truly own themselves, and are not owned by other companies or cannot be purchased by competitors.
I mean, why pay $22 Million dollars for SAP when you can build your own system, for half the price, with Linux and Java.
Besides, your competitors can't buy what you build. What you do build will be truly an advantage.
2) You say SAP is too complex, too functionally rich to replicate? I say your are right. But most companies don't need SAP, they need a subset of SAP. They also need a system that represents a edge against thier competitors that can't be bought elsewhere.
Something you can get with a Linux and Java solution built homegrown, and probably at half the price.
3) Companies will do it. Why? Because they don't want to upgrade every 2-3 years and invest another million dollars because SAP or Microsoft says so.
The investment is also preserved over the lifetime of the hardware with the simple requirement you need a certified VM for your new target hardware and thats it.
4) Companies want to be able to upgrade when they require it, and when it makes business sense, not when Microsoft shareholders want more money.
This will make costs that are out of control right now, and outside the control of IT oragnizations, very much more controllable from year ot year.
Linux and Java delivers that promise.
In the end, Linux delivers this promise bacause it makes people the important part of this equation.
How?
Well, lots of people ask me how I make money with Linux? They don't seem to understand.
Which, for most of my competitors that wonder how I stay in business month to month, I am quite pleased they don't "Get It" as they gear up to write
Meanwhile, I am paying health insurance benefits, bonuses, and paid vacations to my staff to keep them happy at only $80 bucks an hour for software development. All that and in the state of Wisconsin for that matter. One state that taxes businesses quite brutally I am afraid. (I think we are the top 3 or probably in the #1 spot right now....)
Why? Because I don't have those costs. Which are enourmous in respect to how much I spend on software with Linux and Java for my customers...which is ZERO.
I figured out I must be saving close to $50K per year per programmer by not using Microsoft products for example on one of my customers projects.
The point is, in closing, is that IBM figured it out. More specifically, Lou Gerstner, who you can all thank, if you are a IBM shareholder. If Lou didn't see many of these things comming, almost a decade ago, IBM would be a vastly diffferent company both in size and scope right now.
But like Lou, my company makes money by competiting on the value of your organization, in the open source world, not by:
1) How many units of software I shipped.
2) How many server hardware pieces I shipped.
as the primary revenue stream.
You know what? Thats the LAST thing I think about when doing my companies overall goals and improvements list every year.
Both of the points are out moded methods of producing, manufacturing and basing the future industry of IT on. At least if we want to go from a depression like the US IT market is now experiencing, to another good times market.
What single company is doing more to insure that software and shrink wrap software remains the top reason to buy computers and the status quo remains?
Microsoft.
Microsoft is the enemy of everyone on slashdot who is currently out of work, or is looking to a better economy and better times ahead. More specifically, the 28 billion in cash Microsoft has and what it is doing with it is the real problem.
Why? Because Microsoft desperately knows, that it cannot survive very much longer simply on the desktop if it wants to maintain a monopoly market it worked so hard to legalize in the courts and in dustry.
Instead of leadership at that company that is reorganizing and retooling Microsoft for the future, like Gerstner did for IBM in the 90's, the company is using its vast financial resources to:
1) Buy off congress, judges, and lawyers to rule in thier favor on software rights and patents. I won't go into detail HOW they do this, since they already HAVE done it.
If you have been on Slashdot, and have been keeping tabs, you already know the how.
This is thier first step and it involves the DMCA, EULA's. Specifically attack Linux and free software, and slow it down.
To kill Linux, and the widespread use of software that manages information on the internet they will need something else. Since Linux is free, they can't attack it buy illegally appropriating technology, or through illegal hiring practices or just plain threatening a single entity or startup to scare investors away.
What Microsoft needs, is something equivalent to RAT poison to killoff the vast army of pengiuns.
That poison will come in the form of a harmless DRM law.
But not just any DRM, a friendly to Microsoft DRM is what they are after, and in its current stages, lawyers and judges will provide Microsoft with what it needs to kill not only Linux, but any software produced anywhere in the US that isn't licenses by Microsoft.
What Microsoft is aiming to not just secure its OS, but to secure how information is processed and used.
They won't have to develop anything innovative, they will lets the court system establish precedent and cases, to insure that all future information is only handled by DRM approved systems that make software, handle Email, or browse web pages or process information of any kind.
How?
Simple.
By making it criminal to write free software of any kind. They will do this buy buying off and creating companies that insure information cannot be tranismitted or created without the proper ownership credentials.
They will build into thier OS this requirement, and DRM laws will require that all OS's in the US do the same.
However, the algorithms that implement the DRM, will be owned and licensed by Microsoft, and only Microsoft.
If you create any program or recieve any information created by a Microsoft system, that doesn't have a DRM approved license to determine if you have ownership rights, will be illegal.
You see how this is done? It is done from the desktop, where information is created. That way, all the inroads into the server room can be reversed, and Linux or any free derivative there-of. (BSD, Unix..Macintosh etc.)
Simply because Microsoft knows that is currently the only bastion of its Kingdom not under tremendous erosion right now. This way it can deal with Linux and all competitors, from a position to strength, to dictate how much each of us will pay for DRM right to read/write or create ANY information with our computers.
Sound too incredible to believe? It already is happening, although, what I really mean to say there is already precedent.
It is pretty hard write now to transmit information globally or easily without the USE of Versign certs in a secure way. Sure, you can make your own authority for these scripts, but truth is, it is a pain and is a "so called" security risk.
So Microsoft alread has some precedent to understand how a certain kind of information, that is created can be controlled by one or two companies on such a wide and vast scale.
If you look at how they are approaching this, you can see they are setting themselves up to be the "Versign" of information rights management.
Everyone here agrees, that Verisign is a racket. You pay them for a paper trail. Sure. Tell me though for all this added security, how many equitable "Versign Approved" certs last year do you think were used to rip people off online?
Don't know? Just ask a credit card company or look at your bill the next time you get it.
We are all paying for huge fees on our credit cards just to have the priviledge to use our Credit Cards online.
Doesn't really seem like $300 bucks and all that paper is really helping people or the credit card companies....does it?
Yet Verisign maintains a monopoly. I wonder how they can do that?
Interesting issue isn't it?
It forms many of the foundations for which Microsoft is currently building an attack against everyone here on slashdot, or any user in the world that uses a computer.
Imagine a Microsoft OS that has the same requirements, perhaps in partnership with Verisign, who would make the DRM database.
It would seem Microsoft has all the advantages.
But, for all these, they have one thing against them.
That thing is time and it is a very BIG disadvantage because we are living in a depression time in our industry.
You see, the legal system is not exactly fast, even when you are paying off congressional leaders. Our court system is extremely slow.
You can pay off judges, it has been done before, but I don't think paying off one judge would get Microsoft what it needs like in the AntiTrust case. It needs much more, something almost akin to a law that says you MUST use our software.
But IT in America is showing signs it doesn't want to wait. Many of the people I talk with are ready to chuck thier Microsoft servers and explore alternatives....even on the desktop.
Especially in such hard times.
But the hope for our industry lies in Linux, and where it can take us. To remove cost barriers that many IT professionals have always come to expect or think are requirements to run a business. The hope that people finally become the primary selling and buying points in organizations instead of software and hardware licenses.
Linux is growing by leaps and bounds, and provides a hope for our industry to defeat this madness before it shows up on all our budgets, whether we like it or not because Microsoft makes it illegal to do otherwise.
That is a world I would not want to live in and with a new found hope in Linux and Open Source born of hard times indeed, I think we will avoid it.
When we finally do, a healthy industry of many diversified companies will return, and replace the monopolized, expensive and extremely value poor industry we now have.
Until then, Linux will continue to change the rules, and will offer companies in these uncertain times true value that will allow them to compete on a more sound financial basis when building IT systems as part of a company business model.
Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
..cos Kansas is going bye-bye.
As a reseller you are a middleman, Sun spends the billions on research and development, you reap a large share of the rewards when times are good. During the inflation of the dot-com bubble you helped Sun to keep headcount and warehouse space to a minimum - and your price was a generous discount on Sun hardware and software. Now you are a waste of space. I know of 2 decent Sun resellers in my old vertical market (both of which covered many other markets as well) they provided a tangible value-add - both in terms of technical pre-sales skills, benchmarking facilities and post sales consultancy services. I'm sure they're feeling the pinch at the moment, but I think their customers will return.
If I were running the partner programme at Sun, I would certainly want to weed out the underperforming resellers, especially those who complain about mandatory training sessions. You are a cost of sale and even during the good times your performance was often embarrasing. It's all about value-add, if you're not adding anything other than a customer base for Sun, prepare for those customers to cut out out of the loop and deal direct with Sun.
# init 5
Connection closed.
Oh...
I worked at a Honeywell site in the IT dept. as a lowly tier 2 tech and lost my job (along with about 30 other people) when the reigning CEO thought it would be a swell idea to outsource IT to IBM due to all the money Honeywell would "save". (Well, actually Allied Signal would be saving money but that's another issue all together)
I didn't work there long as I had just recently found myself in need of work after being laid off from my "real" job at an avionics firm, but in my brief stay at Honeywell the first thing I noticed was how utterly helpful the help desk and IT dept was. I have never seen end users recieve such royal treatment anywhere and of course that all changed when the transistion started. What normally would take us anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to correct soon became a "guaranteed 72 hour response time" courtesy of IBM's superior service. Keep in mind this could be something as simple as resetting a users password from my desk because they failed to remember it (very common and takes about 10 seconds to fix) but this was now a "Priority 1" problem for IBM which contractually could take up to 72 hours to fix.
Unfortunately CEOs seldom see anything beyond dollar signs and are easily convinced by the bean counters that outsourcing is a sound idea. IBM offered about two thirds of the IT staff jobs, and Honeywell's policy was that if we were offered at least two-thirds our current salary we either had to accept the offer or lose our jobs AND our severance packages. Naturally IBM wanted me and the others low on the totem pole but had no use for those with 20+ years experience... because they didn't want to pay them for their knowledge no doubt.
I'm done venting but to me it seens painfully obvious that outsourcing IT is a bad idea unless your IT department is the worst ever because in the couple of instances I've seen it happen it resulted in a much lower level of service and IMHO IT is not where you want to cut corners. It may seem like a nice way to make your numbers look better but in the long run I believe it will be a costly mistake.
Most of the Linux work that I've observed is being implemented by hacks and amateurs in a hurry and trying to save a buck.
This will turn around and bite the Linux community pretty hard. Be prepared for a major backlash as companies start getting burned by poor implementations...
I do not believe in general, in a T.C.O. (total cost of ownership) savings by going to Linux. The true cost is in systems administration, intellectual property, and data. Hardware, OS, and COTS Apps are not significant by comparison.
So now we have amateur hack systems which aren't realizing significant cost savings.
This spells trouble brewing for Linux.
--
ps - I am a professional linux system administration consultant. I am trying my dangdest to keep the above predictions from coming true - but I fear the worst.
O=='=++
Not at all. He started off with a really dumb idea, but managed to avoid shooting himself in the foot. For the record, the agency I worked for was outside the jurisdiction of the executive branch, so this little adventure had no impact on me personally.
The outsourcing deal was ridiculed from day one. By the time they had it narrowed down to a single bidder, nearly half of all IT in the state had managed to exempt itself. Had Rowland (a Republican) gone through with the deal, the Democrats would have never stopped talking about the long-term commitment that never produced any savings. The same smoke-and-mirrors technology that the Republicans would have used to "prove" savings would work even better in reverse, as the Democrats "prove" cost overruns.
Instead, the decision was made to outsource a few projects where the scope and risk were more manageable. As usual, common sense will prevail, as soon as all other possibilities have been exhausted.
As it happens, Rowland is up for re-election. I would never have considered myself a Rowland fan, but the Democratic opponent is worse.
It might explain why IBM will benefit and other vendors like Sun Microsystem which don't have a strong service arm will suffer
At first I thought "Huh? Sun has a strong service arm..." Then I saw the Big Fucking IBM ad and realized what was going on.
I guess that is what you see. It exists, I don't dispute that. But in quantity as compared to hacks I have seen in the Windows world, it occurs far more often, with much more devastating results for IT organizations with windows for the following reason:
:-)
Linux intrinisically requires a person to have a greater understanding of the science and operational aspects of a computer than Windows does.
What we have to think about here is that a BAD thing?
This requires a greater energy input to learn, and as a result, most Linux people usually come with a greater understanding automatically of the hows and whys of not how to do certain things a particular way.
Windows XP makes things so simple, that most people can setup services and do things easily, without understanding WHY they shouldn't.
This is because Redmond is attempting to put every single possibility of building IT systems into a bunch of dialog boxes built as part of a two directional decision tree governed by OK and CANCEL buttons and anything else the OS makes the decision GRATIS.
Linux has a very different approach and it DOES require a greater input of time and energy.
Is this bad? I am not sure, you decide but here is why:
It doesn't attempt to make anything easy or hard.
What Linux attempts to do, is make the person administrating the server directly responsible for its operational aspects/details, far more so than Windows.
This philosophy embodies 2 things:
1) The person can make the decisions much better than the OS.
2) Give the person the tools to enable his decisions via computer programming or systems language to manage his enterprise.
Very very different philosophy. I like this one better. Primarily because these program snippets can be contributed back into the user community as part of a "Best Administrative Practices" and can be refined by the Admins of Linux as well, because they get access to the source.
So, I guess I see poorly designed systems on the Windows side of things much more than the Linux side.
Except that, with Windows, the poor designs are primarily a result of Windows software, because of the fact that Windows tries to do everything for you, and as such must make a large number of Admin decisions for you.
The result is bad decisions and poor implementations, not just in Administrative side of the Windows OS but also in the software side as well.
What is ironic is the fact that high performance systems as defined by most Windows Admins is expense and security.
For Linux Admins it is speed and uptime.
At least that is what I get when I ask respective Admins what is most important.
So I think you can put your mind at ease and that hacks should be few and far between in our field.
(But don't quote me on that...stupid people do what stupid people can do.)
Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
A businessman's goal is not to make profit, but maximize profits. Never forget this. An executive has an ethical obligation to his stockholders to deliver the largest possible profit, every quarter.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!