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Lack of Innovation in IT Holding Companies Back?
bednarz writes to mention that Google's Dave Girouard, manager of enterprise business, is blaming a "crisis" in IT and the "insane complexity" of technology, among other things, for the lack of innovation that could allow businesses to grow. "A lot of things that people think of as core IT functions need to disappear into the ether so that the IT organization can properly focus on the value-added [activities]," he said. "Information security, as critical as it is, needs to be taken care of by organizations who live and die by it, who invest the money, time, resources and staff. Why should every company in the world have to build up their own expertise and have to maintain servers and provide security?"
---"A lot of things that people think of as core IT functions need to disappear into the ether so that the IT organization can properly focus on the value-added [activities]," he said. "Information security, as critical as it is, needs to be taken care of by organizations who live and die by it, who invest the money, time, resources and staff. Why should every company in the world have to build up their own expertise and have to maintain servers and provide security?"
It comes down to ownership and renting..
Would you rather own your home, or rent it? Would you rather rent a car or own it?
Thats right, we can pay Google Apps to take care of our network architecture because we cant be bothered with it... Until they perceive a "non-payment".. What happens then when the lights go out? Do the DNS servers stop working, do the samba servers get rm'ed? Or does the master-password holders (READ google) just shut down every network appliance you all are using?
Not smart. Not smart at all...
A company buys enormous data centers, the kind one might use to farm out a business' IT infrastructure needs, and then that company promotes... farming out business' IT infrastructure needs! Whaaa?!
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Try signing up for Google Checkout to sell things on Google Base... It's a disconnected nightmare process.
Google does search & email well. The rest... right up there with everyone else.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
IT organization can properly focus on the value-added [activities]
Yeah, I could see your point - if you define the function of IT that way. Most people out there though, don't. They see IT as the tech problem-solvers in the business. Fix that computer, hook me to such-and-such across VPN, get rid of my spyware.
If you want to have a group of guys doing value added activities, hire some engineers or more IT staff and define their job responsibilities that way. And once you do, don't bug them with other stuff. If they're supposed to be idea guys, let them do that and that only. Don't interrupt them with your secretary's spyware problem.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The Federal Government, which pays for most of the innovation in the US (directly through r&d contracts, or indirectly through grants) has cut back on its tech spending to free up money for the war.
Best Slashdot Co
More like 'lack of budget.'
How can we address 'lack of expanding?' Whenever someone trots out a Vista post we're reminded there's still businesses out there running on a Win 2000 network because 'it just works' and isn't getting replaced.
I'm sure the poor compitent sysadmin of that 2K network has plenty of ideas how to innovate their network, but they can't requisition the funds for it. Then there's training, dealing with the migration... Sure, it can happen, but no one outside IT sees the advantage in it.
Now compare that to the major problems in most everyday corperations...
Note if your company looses all its email data it will not make the news unless you are hosting for people outside your company.
This stuff really happends far more frequently with self run IT shops. Google is a lot better then the average. They are not perfect but better then most.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Another major problem in Not Invented Here (NIH). Why does every organization seem to feel the need to invent their own solutions to standard problems? Why does every small shop seem to write their own inventory or accounting program? The needs are not that different from the "standard" solutions. Some places have seen a good acceptance of standard products, such as work processors and spreadsheet - imagine telling your company CFO that you don't like how Excel/OO-Calc works and you want to create a custom spreadsheet just for you company. Sure, most businesses can make good use of a few custom macros, but a custom spreadsheet for the MBAs? All of the outsourcing brouhaha a few years ago was the first step in this process: 1) Create innovative custom software, 2) other companies make simular programs, 3) outsource net revisions - creating a specialized knowledge base about that type of program, and soon, 4) somebody creates a standard product, 5) profit!
Really, office desktops should be more like the N64 A ROM cartridge with all of your apps that only get the new generation every 5 years. And the server side is even less interesting.
A Google exec telling companies to outsource IT, is like a Microsoft exec telling companies to use Windows.
Given Google's recent missteps; In a few years, suggesting we outsource core IT functions to Google might be as laughable as suggesting we outsource core IT functions to Microsoft.
Or lack of any business sense as well..
Let's see farm out the security and core operation of the company's IT infrastructure to another company. Will you give them key's to the building and the combination to your safes as well? Because they will have access to all your plans, documents, and other information that is secret to your company... These managers never pull their heads out of their ass far enough to see that until you spell it out for them. We had to do that at Comcast once. They wanted to have a 3rd party company take over some critical security, Executives were unwavering until they were told point blank, "do you trust this company with your private info and the contents of your laptop? Under Sarbanes oxley, if they screw up it's YOUR HEAD that rolls not theirs..."
IT is a cost of doing business, just like sales and marketing, why the suits want to farm out everything they do not understand themselves is never understood by those that actually do the work. They never farm out SALES or management to a 3rd party, IT is as critical to the business as sales and management.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You already give your keys and access codes to your "physical" security company.
c++;
Nick,
You make a great point, but I think it's more systemic than that. It comes from this post-90's view that all a company needs to do to boost its stock price is to close a few locations and fire 15% of their employees. Call it "Profit by the Thousand Cuts".
So IT directors are just taking their cues from the CEOs (because many of them want desperately to become CEO) and measure their job by how far they can cut costs. Forget about how miserable your internal customers are. Just the fact that the people who work in your company are now considered "internal customers" show that they are considered fodder, not humans. When you decide that with enough properly written protocols you can hire total morons and still get the job done, it's only a matter of time. You are finished.
There was a fascinating story last night on The Marketplace on NPR. It was about the fact that the steady growth in productivity we've seen in this country since, well, since the beginning is finally beginning to slow down. It means that we may have reached the limit of what you can expect out of workers, regardless of the income-level. We've squeezed workers to the point that marriages are failing, children are ignored and people have to be miserable if they want to pay their bills. Workers are made "management" so they can't get paid for overtime. The wonderful 7am "working breakfast" meetings become common. A CEO's effectiveness is measured by how many people he can lay off.
I had an uncle, an Italian immigrant, who measured the success of his business by how many people he employed, not how few.
Expect to see a renewed interest in collective bargaining in the coming decade. People are tired of being used. Squeezed. Being asked to give more while getting less. If the US is going to keep from becoming a third world country, we better realize that our people are our most important resource. The people who work downstairs, not the CEOs in the suite pulling down 9-figure incomes, who get 7-figure bonuses for closing factories.
Seriously, I pray we start to turn this around before blood has to be spilled over the division between The Rich and The Rest.
You are welcome on my lawn.