The IT Man(ager), the NewlyHired Boy and the Infrastructure Donkey

I sometimes think Infoworld (and similar publications) write some of their articles just to stir the pot on a slow news day. Their latest offering suggests five 'radical' solutions to ITs woes and their first two suggestions put a cold shiver down my spine while the remaining three ideas made me wonder if this was a reprint of an article from the middle of last decade.

• IT resolution No. 1: Let employees use any PC they want: It's easy for Infoworld to say let the user take responsibility for supporting their own non-standard computers but the reality is that when users hit a dead end it's always IT that has to come to the rescue. Allowing non-standard computers also ends the tried and true technique of swapping out a flaky computer with a standby box and sending the offending unit into the rebuild and reformat queue. Infoworld suggests that "Trying to control all the endpoints is a losing game" but I don't see how they justify that comment. Just tell the users that they can have any computer they want as long as they choose the one that's sitting under their desk right now.
  
  
• IT resolution No. 2: Let employees use any smartphone they want: Frankly I don't care what technology the new hires used in University and want to cuddle up with in the privacy of their cubicle. See my previous answer. The alternative is for IT to support a Blackberry server plus an iPhone server plus every other push server ever invented and as far as I'm concerned if people are working with company assets then they need to dance to the company's technology tune. If they've got a great idea about a new technology then they should prepare a proper business case and IT management can review it . If they can't be bothered preparing a proposal and won't accept the existing corporate technology then they can get another job. Once again Infoworld suggests that "Trying to control all the endpoints is a losing game" but if IT just refuses to forward the corporate email to the Boy Wonder's dinky Linux earphone-cum-gamesconsole then I'd say IT just won that game.
  
  
• IT resolution No. 3: Shift to Web-style apps: There is some merit in this proposal but web-style apps have been in use for most of the Noughties. This must really have been a slow news day for Infoworld.
  
  
• IT resolution No. 4: Map out a strategy for the use of client virtualization: This is newer technology than web apps but it's hardly a radical idea.
  
  
• IT resolution No. 5: Deploy collaboration platforms: You mean like the Lotus Notes/Domino platform with 20+ of solid development behind it? Alas no, the article mentions Google Docs and Microsoft Sharepoint but not Lotus Domino. Maybe IBM hasn't taken this journalist out for a free lunch recently...

There are exceptions to every rule and that includes the rules I suggest for Resolution One and Two. Maybe the key Knowledge Workers in the company can justify bringing their own laptop to work but if they want to introduce a new Smartphone technology into the company then IT needs to quantify (and charge back) the additional support expenses they generate. And I don't doubt that freshly-minted university graduates can provide valuable input into the corporate computing strategy but beware the fate of the IT Man(ager), the NewlyHired Boy and the Infrastructure Donkey.

So that's another thirty minutes wasted... five minutes to read the pointless Infoworld article and twentyfive minutes to write a grumpy blog post about it.
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No more Mister Nice Guy

We've had an interesting 24 hours with the CMSWatch saga since Carl Tyler first broke the story about the Adriaan Bloem's assertion that IBM was phasing out Notes.

Adriaans response was completely inadequate - he complained that when he wrote 'fact', people thought he meant a 'fact' when actually he didn't. Then his colleague wrote a weasel word retraction claiming that Adriaan 'mis-spoke' when the truth was that Adriaan just didn't bother to check the truth. Now (in comment 13 of Carl's original post) Adriaan is asking if he can borrow a VM Image of Notes to get some experience with the product.

So how can CMSWatch consider themselves competent to write and sell IT industry reports when they have such an enormous chasm in their staff's education. These guys position themselves as vendor-neutral technology experts (I quote from their website: "CMS Watch™ evaluates content-oriented technologies, publishing head-to-head comparative reviews of leading solutions."), yet they seem to have paper-thin technical expertise with regard to Sharepoint's biggest competitor and (apparently) don't have any in-house Notes resources who can help sort out Adriaan's confusion.

So well done Carl for putting CMSWatch on the spot so they could get the caning they so richly deserved. It may not change their product bias but it will make them think twice the next time they want to regurgitate the old Microsoft mantras. I suggest the same 'Boots And All' treatment is applied to any other professional publishers who take the same shortcuts. NOTE: I do not condone abuse or other unprofessional behavior - I am talking about flooding offenders with accurate comments to show where they are wrong and not putting up with weasel word replies.

No more Mister Nice Guy!

OK... OK... the Horse is dead. I'll stop flogging it.


EDIT: The intrepid Michael Sampson has pointed out to me the difference between CMSWire and CMSWatch.

• CMSwatch is the analyst house who penned the Sharepoint Report and also hosted the writings of Adriaan Bloem.

• CMSWire is a totally different organization founded by Brice Dunwoodie.

I have, at times, confused the two - mea culpa. I apologize to CMSWire for my mistake.
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Foundations: Not for Sale in Australia?

Up until now I've been sourcing Foundations licences directly from the US since the distribution arm for Foundations in Australia was still getting itself organised. I now have another sale of ten Lotus Foundations licences so I decided to do the right thing and sign up as a reseller with the two organisations distributing Lotus software in Australia, ITX and Express Data.

Unfortunately I don't qualify as a reseller for either of them.

• ITX insist up front that resellers have a website and don't use a Hotmail account as their email address.
• Express Data aren't as blatant but I'm still waiting for a call back from their account approver who (I was told by the person who answered the phone there) has a problem since my email address is with Hotmail.

Reality check Number One:
Websites aren't essential for software consultants. Sure, some of us build those websites for a living and some of us use them as a vehicle for self-expression but our business is not based on sitting back and waiting for the world to google a path to our door. I've just mentally listed four colleagues who work as consultants with Lotus software and are quite capable (and willing) to sell Lotus Foundations but none of whom have their own web site simply because it isn't required for their business model.

OK, I now have a website - www.bcd.net.au - All it does is tell you how to contact me via phone or email and you had that information on my application form anyway. If my website is down it means I'm tinkering with my server trying out a few new configuration settings and normal services should be resumed in a day or two.

Reality check Number Two:
There's a new game in town called 'Software-As-A-Service'. It means that you don't run your own infrastructure if you can find someone who can do it for you at a better price. Hotmail and Gmail have a pretty good price right now for someone who only needs a couple of email addresses as contact points, and if it wasn't for Hotmail I'd have been without email for two weeks while I waited for my new server to arrive.

Reality check Number Three:
IBM already has a mechanism for checking out the bona fides of software resellers. Binary Concepts has paid the fees, passed the exams (technical and sales) and jumped through the required hoops for IBM and is an Authorised IBM Business Partner for the Lotus brand. I'd suggest those are more stringent and appropriate criteria than the identity of my email provider.


I appreciate the point that distributors need to protect themselves against scammers who sign up as a software dealer so they can supply their real business with discount software, but looking for web sites and email addresses is not the way to do it. Foundations is software targetted at small business and those kind of organisations normally uses smaller IT organisations (or even one-man bands) to support them. If those small IT organisations can't source licences for Foundations then that's another sale lost for IBM.

OK... time to send an email back to Lotus in the US and see if they can do me a better deal than the local suppliers. I've got a new purchase order for ten licences of Lotus Foundations and I want to spend my time installing that software for my customer rather than dicking around with application forms.
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