In my experience, there is room for a cut of that size in IT. There are plenty of unqualified people, management needs to prune 'em. Take this real world example:
- Consultant shows up at client site to develop software, and requests a development workstation and software. - IT staff provides an off the shelf box with Office. - Consultant re-requests the development software package. IT staff takes it under consideration. Consultant twiddles thumbs. - IT staff provides development software. - Consultant realizes he does not have admin access to his workstation, and can't install software, and requests admin access. - Consultant is informed that he is not allowed to have admin access to his own developer workstation. - etc....
A simple example, but it goes on every day at all levels of large corporations. Lots of companies invest in large IT staffs that in actuality provide little direct benefit to the corporation. They need to figure out how to trim back to the minimum, effective IT organization, and sub the rest out.
That said, I think that domestic firms are going to provide equal or greater value than outsourcing, it's just too difficult to keep continuity with the client with overseas development.
IT consultant says... they're toast
on
The Faded Sun
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
While Sun has tried to compete with MS and IBM, they haven't been successful. For one, they have no application server. Yeah, they have "iplanet", but who is doing development for this platform? Nobody. Currently, enterprises are deciding between.Net and Websphere for the most part. Many companies are also consolidating their hardware purchases, and I can tell you, they are not consolidating it into a bunch of Solaris boxes. Sure, Sun may have a stronghold here and there, but on the whole companies are getting rid of their Sun machines. Ford, for example, just decided to turn their entire hardware purchasing to IBM. That means the several thousand workstations and servers they have from Sun will all be gone in a year or two.
Java, contrary to what some of you have posted, has a solid piece of the market. This is largely due to companies like IBM, who have provided compelling development tools and deployment platforms. Many enterprises are looking at Java as a way to keep their business logic in a relatively vendor-neutral place. So, Java is not going anywhere. But, I can't see that it is going to do Sun much good. Amazingly, Sun has some of the worst Java tools available.
So, Cringley's article is not a troll or a flame, he makes some sober observations about a company that has been losing relavance for some time. He is absolutely correct when he says they need a visionary. Joy and all those other guys are not filling that role. Sun needs a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs. Someone who will wake that company up and say, "Screw servers, we're losing our ass there. Let's do embedded devices!", or something. Anything but what they have been doing for the last several years.
Wow. It would make a great deal of sense for AOL/Time-Warner to acquire an operating system for leverage against Microsoft - same reason they bought Netscape.
Yeah, that's right, and they did what with netscape? Nothing. What are they going to do with Linux? Build a consumer operating system and browser combo to go up against Windows? Not likely.
Many successful software companies charge support fees in addition to a flat fee for the software itself. Sometimes the support contract is mandatory to obtaining the software. This really amounts to the same thing as M$'s deal, but the way Microsoft does it has more of an unsavory feel, doesn't it?
Why is that? Conceptually, we know that any given piece of software is only going to last a few years (without an upgrade) before it becomes irrelevant. Wouldn't it be easier to just pay an annual fee and always get the latest and greatest without having to worry about it?
But, I guess it is the idea of personal choice, and the fact that it's cheaper only if you were going to get every single upgrade with no break in between.
Perhaps they should just return to sold software and support contracts.
would be that your can make more efficient use of hardware with Apache, yes?
Re:They already HAVE it at the local Kinko's!
on
Books on Demand
·
· Score: 1
Of the $39.95 sale price of an O'Reilly book, about 1% is the cost of production. The other 99% is what you are paying the publisher and the author. Your cost doesn't include this, so the actual cost to insta-print an O'Reilly book is more like $70+.
I've always said, it's all about the apps. Office, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, mainstream games, etc. are not available for Linux, and they never will be. Believe me, it's too bad, but that's the way it is.
And don't pretend Linux is easy to install, and that there are no driver issues. Windows and Mac desktops have been honing their approach to configuration for a long, long time, and it shows. Sure, it's not perfect, but pretty much any idiot can figure it out.
Anyway, who cares? Is that what Linux is about, duplicating and replacing Windows? You think Linux is miraculously going to avoid all the problems of the other two leading desktops? I don't think so.
Well, by their actions I believe they have admitted the need to reach some kind of agreement with the record companies. That basically gives the power to the record companies. If I was the record companies, I'd simply hold out for as much money as I could squeeze from Napster.
It will take a lot more than a nice file manager to get Linux adopted by anyone other than a Linux gearhead. Take installation, for example. MacOS9 has pretty much a one-click install (you can just go with the defaults). Hell, you can even just copy the OS from one machine to another without reinstalling.
There are other examples, but it's this kind of ease-of-use that Linux will have to have to significantly impinge the Windows/Mac desktop marketshare. There's a long way to go.
Good decisions are based on good information. A good approach might be to do some rough calculations on the cost of moving, including 'costs' for downtime, etc. Compare that to the value gained by making the switch (I'll have to assume it's to gain Exchange specific features). Perhaps research what it would cost to implement third-party tools to achieve the same functionality.
Slashdot Mirror
In my experience, there is room for a cut of that size in IT. There are plenty of unqualified people, management needs to prune 'em. Take this real world example:
- Consultant shows up at client site to develop software, and requests a development workstation and software.
- IT staff provides an off the shelf box with Office.
- Consultant re-requests the development software package. IT staff takes it under consideration. Consultant twiddles thumbs.
- IT staff provides development software.
- Consultant realizes he does not have admin access to his workstation, and can't install software, and requests admin access.
- Consultant is informed that he is not allowed to have admin access to his own developer workstation.
- etc....
A simple example, but it goes on every day at all levels of large corporations. Lots of companies invest in large IT staffs that in actuality provide little direct benefit to the corporation. They need to figure out how to trim back to the minimum, effective IT organization, and sub the rest out.
That said, I think that domestic firms are going to provide equal or greater value than outsourcing, it's just too difficult to keep continuity with the client with overseas development.
While Sun has tried to compete with MS and IBM, they haven't been successful. For one, they have no application server. Yeah, they have "iplanet", but who is doing development for this platform? Nobody. Currently, enterprises are deciding between .Net and Websphere for the most part. Many companies are also consolidating their hardware purchases, and I can tell you, they are not consolidating it into a bunch of Solaris boxes. Sure, Sun may have a stronghold here and there, but on the whole companies are getting rid of their Sun machines. Ford, for example, just decided to turn their entire hardware purchasing to IBM. That means the several thousand workstations and servers they have from Sun will all be gone in a year or two.
Java, contrary to what some of you have posted, has a solid piece of the market. This is largely due to companies like IBM, who have provided compelling development tools and deployment platforms. Many enterprises are looking at Java as a way to keep their business logic in a relatively vendor-neutral place. So, Java is not going anywhere. But, I can't see that it is going to do Sun much good. Amazingly, Sun has some of the worst Java tools available.
So, Cringley's article is not a troll or a flame, he makes some sober observations about a company that has been losing relavance for some time. He is absolutely correct when he says they need a visionary. Joy and all those other guys are not filling that role. Sun needs a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs. Someone who will wake that company up and say, "Screw servers, we're losing our ass there. Let's do embedded devices!", or something. Anything but what they have been doing for the last several years.
Wow. It would make a great deal of sense for AOL/Time-Warner to acquire an operating system for leverage against Microsoft - same reason they bought Netscape.
Yeah, that's right, and they did what with netscape? Nothing. What are they going to do with Linux? Build a consumer operating system and browser combo to go up against Windows? Not likely.
Many successful software companies charge support fees in addition to a flat fee for the software itself. Sometimes the support contract is mandatory to obtaining the software. This really amounts to the same thing as M$'s deal, but the way Microsoft does it has more of an unsavory feel, doesn't it?
Why is that? Conceptually, we know that any given piece of software is only going to last a few years (without an upgrade) before it becomes irrelevant. Wouldn't it be easier to just pay an annual fee and always get the latest and greatest without having to worry about it?
But, I guess it is the idea of personal choice, and the fact that it's cheaper only if you were going to get every single upgrade with no break in between.
Perhaps they should just return to sold software and support contracts.
would be that your can make more efficient use of hardware with Apache, yes?
Of the $39.95 sale price of an O'Reilly book, about 1% is the cost of production. The other 99% is what you are paying the publisher and the author. Your cost doesn't include this, so the actual cost to insta-print an O'Reilly book is more like $70+.
I've always said, it's all about the apps. Office, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, mainstream games, etc. are not available for Linux, and they never will be. Believe me, it's too bad, but that's the way it is.
And don't pretend Linux is easy to install, and that there are no driver issues. Windows and Mac desktops have been honing their approach to configuration for a long, long time, and it shows. Sure, it's not perfect, but pretty much any idiot can figure it out.
Anyway, who cares? Is that what Linux is about, duplicating and replacing Windows? You think Linux is miraculously going to avoid all the problems of the other two leading desktops? I don't think so.
Well, by their actions I believe they have admitted the need to reach some kind of agreement with the record companies. That basically gives the power to the record companies. If I was the record companies, I'd simply hold out for as much money as I could squeeze from Napster.
I bet it ends up being a LOT more than 1.67 per.
It will take a lot more than a nice file manager to get Linux adopted by anyone other than a Linux gearhead. Take installation, for example. MacOS9 has pretty much a one-click install (you can just go with the defaults). Hell, you can even just copy the OS from one machine to another without reinstalling. There are other examples, but it's this kind of ease-of-use that Linux will have to have to significantly impinge the Windows/Mac desktop marketshare. There's a long way to go.
Good decisions are based on good information. A good approach might be to do some rough calculations on the cost of moving, including 'costs' for downtime, etc. Compare that to the value gained by making the switch (I'll have to assume it's to gain Exchange specific features). Perhaps research what it would cost to implement third-party tools to achieve the same functionality.
It should be obvious that the author is referring to those features as appearing in a consumer operating system.