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Sun's CIO Talks Internal Experiences
daria42 writes "This is an interesting interview with Sun's chief information officer Bill Vass, about his experiences as the CIO of one of the world's best-known high-tech company. In particular, Vass talks about corporate blogging (and frustrated lawyers), problems providing IT support to finicky Sun engineers (who sometimes demand Indian help desk support knows kernel details), Sun's programs testing its software internally on employees before it goes out, and how ultimately, his job is like any other CIO's...just with some cool toys."
For example, he said Sun president Jonathan Schwartz -- who keeps a public blog -- was frustrated when April Fool's day came around, because he couldn't use his blog to play a practical joke.
... if ever he's writing anything controversial he has to get the lawyers to look at it."
"A few times, he's said things like 'maybe we should acquire Novell', and it changed the stock price," Vass said of Schwartz's blog. "You have to be careful
Sun is buying Novell? Ack! I need to go call my stock broker!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Although Vass had no knowledge of this, he soon discovered the system in question was in fact the desktop machine of an engineer who had recently left the company. The desktop had been reformatted following his departure, cutting off 600 users who had over the last three years depended on it for network services.
Reminds me of a guy whose leaving our company right now. We're probably not going to delete his homespace since lord knows what will break if the things in there are gone.
It'll take us awhile to get that stuff into a common place. Probably took Sun a lot of time to get that one system back up and running.
-Teiresias
I do NOT envy the job of CIO. Those guys have a tough row to hoe. BTW, if you ever want to know how the industry is being perceived by business, CIO magazine is a great read.(but expensive) It's real eye-opener to hear things from the other side of the tracks.
Moore's Law: Not the Only Game in Town
>However, some unusual problems did surface sometimes, he said, citing the example of a Solaris engineer who contacted Sun's IT help desk in India and subsequently sent Vass a note complaining the help desk member who assisted him didn't know intricate kernel settings for the operating system he needed help on.
Can you imagine that call, "I am so happy to be helping you, however, I am sorry to be informing you that... pause...I am not being the Dammed premier kernel support line! " SLAM!
lol
I would be angry too if I called up technical support and I couldn't get kernel level knowlege. Most administrators know or at least use to know enough about the platform they are admistering to handle most of the problems and then for other things the search the web and blogs, for more help. If this fails them they have a good question for technical support. And having to go threw level 1 then 2 then 3 technical support is just annoying, and a waist of time. Technical support should be able to quicly figure out the complexity of your problem and move you to the aproprate level. If I am adding a user the person who answers the phone should give me to level 1, but if I am configuring the system kernel options then I should be placed on a higher level support.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I, for one, welcome our new Indian poor grammar kernel hacker overloards...
When you are CIO of a technical company it is tempting be lax with policy and give the employees more access then they should have, it seems like a decent policy, first you save money because the desktops that people use anyways are also the servers so you don't need expensive servers, the technical people can administer their own system, and whatever they are serving.
But being a CIO you need to be a Dick every once in a while and make sure the technical people have the only the access they need to do their work properly. Have the IT department put buisness level servers in the server room and have them properly managed.
While the first way seems quicker and easier and has less personal conflect. The second way is better to manage and reduces of mission critical mistakes. It also allows for proper upgrading for the future.
Sure the employess can do the work themselvs but they rairly consider the big picture and end up with a spread of services which are hard to track and manage. It also creates a situration where an employee cannot be moved to a different position because they have the information that others dont.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
His blog is empty.
I need to clarify I think that price cuts are a good thing for Sun. I didn't realize with my first reply that you were actually criticizing Sun for cutting prices. How cutting prices is a death knell is beyond me.
The FACT is that Sun's hardware has been way OVERPRICED for almost a decade! That's exactly why I personally have seen a number of major, international, engineering firms go from Sun workstations to Dell workstations. The Dell systems were twice and fast at half the cost and the CAD/CAM product that they used was available on both platforms. So, switching to Dell was a no brainer!
The fact that Sun is starting to cut their prices tells me that they finally understand that they can no longer ride the high-price wave just because of the Sun name.
So, you tell me what's worse - selling less hardware at a higher profit margin because it's cost prohibitive, or selling more hardware at a lower cost and lower profit margin? Personally, I'd rather get anything that I sell to more people at a lower profit. It gets a larger installed base; it means that many more people that might upgrade in the future; it means even more potential sales for licensing; it means more people that might spread positive word-of mouth. There are many more benefits that I can see to selling more items at a lower cost than fewer at a higher cost. They might not be realized in the here and now, but they could bring in much better returns in the long run.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Here's how escalation works...
1. Customer calls tech suppport(level 1)
2. Level 1 can't fix it. Fills out an escalation form to level 2. The unseen beings of level 2 are supposed to call back. A "trouble ticket" is made to great detail by level 1 tech, apologizes to customer.
3. Time passes by
4. The unseen overlords of level 2(or escalation department) forget about the trouble ticket, hoping the customer and level 1 forget about the trouble ticket
5. level 1 prays customer never calls back, since he/she heard nothing from level 2 about it, and never will.
That's at least what happened when I did tech support for an ISP. I think I later checked on the customers with escalations, and they, well, weren't customers anymore.