CIO

Overheard: There’s money to be made building data centers

Data center construction is probably the only healthy segment of the building industry. Michael Kanellos, Data Center Power Consumption: By the Numbers

Overheard: Symantec and SaaS

I don’t believe Symantec have their head around SaaS. Up their own SaaS maybe, the pricing shows that. Mark Twomey, SwapDrive. It’ll cost you!

Thank you Storage Anarchist (Barry A. Burke) for sending me this quote.  Barry, if you will recall,  coined the popular phrase ”Hitachi math.”

Overheard: Elton Mayo

“One friend, one person who is truly understanding, who takes the trouble to listen to us as we consider our problems, can change our whole outlook on the work.” Elton Mayo

Overheard: India faces “employability” problem

Recent statistics show that the job opportunities in India have outnumbered the available hands. The problem is more of “Employability” rather than employment.   vidyai, The Soft Skills Training – Where it begins!!

Overheard: Enterprise Web 2.0 inbreeding

Spending too much time with the ‘in crowd’ who ‘get’ Enterprise 2.0 can result in serious over-enthusiasm and lack of realism. Martin Kloos, The state of Enterprise 2.0 and why we need new stories

Ever since Forrester released a report last month saying that Web 2.0 technologies will have a world-wide market value of $4.6 billion by the year 2013, the early adopters have been patting themselves on the back, saying “I told you so.”

Not so fast, bucko. 2013 is a long way away and enterprise IT is not just going to open its doors to the new kids on the block just because a new generation is entering the workplace. What’s more likely to happen is that legacy IT applications will make updates, incorporating Web 2.o features that work for a particular industry or software application.

At the very least…those Web 2.0 apps wanting consideration will need respectable names. Manly names. Serious names. Names IT professionals don’t feel embarrassed talking about at manager’s meetings. Twitter? Tweets? I don’t think so.

Overheard: There’s no killer app for GRC software

Most people assume that so-called GRC software–governance, risk and compliance–will continue to gather steam, as big boys like Oracle and SAP continue their marketing. It makes sense to automate compliance and risk issues, but the reality of this nascent field is that there really isn’t a single point solution. John Hagerty, CFOs face complex GRC software decisions

Overheard: Microsoft disagrees with GPL…again

“With open source software, there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.” Bill Gates as quoted in Bill Gates on Pharmaceuticals: The System Isn’t Working

I have to admit, I am a big Bill Gates fan. Richard Stallman, on the other hand, is definitely not a Bill Gates fan. It’s seems like I read and read and read about Microsoft and open source, but I still can’t hear what MS is saying because I can’t get past the politics and the gigantic personalities of these two men.  I wish they’d both stop blowing smoke.

Overheard: Say goodbye to middleware as a standalone offering

The notion of middleware as a standalone offering is disappearing. Aneel Bhusri as quoted in SaaS Start-Up Workday Acquires Cape Clear

Workday acquired Cape Clear Software, one of the last remaining independent providers of an enterprise service bus, the middleware technology for service-oriented architecture. The SaaS startup, also known as the PeopleSoft alumni association, has positioned itself as an on-demand alternative to ERP.

Mary Hayes Weier writes “It’s a critical technology and talent acquisition for Workday, since IT managers often cite concerns about integrating their legacy apps with on-demand apps as the biggest barrier to SaaS adoption.”

At least one-third of business application software spending will be SaaS

With software as service (SaaS), the user organisation pays for software services in proportion to use. This is fundamentally different from the fixed-price perpetual license of the traditional on-premises technology. Endorsed and promoted by all leading business applications vendors (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft) and many Web technology leaders (Google, Amazon), the SaaS model of deployment and distribution of software services will enjoy steady growth in mainstream use during the next five years.

Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organisations and Users in 2008 and Beyond

Overheard: Governance, risk and compliance in a single $400,000 package

That integration wasn’t quite there when we first implemented the software. We were going on faith regarding the vendor’s promises. John Wheeler, SunTrust Banks Inc.

This quote came from an article in CFO magazine by John Goff called The Emergence of Convergence.  It’s a very well-written analysis of an emerging software genre called GRC (governance, risk and compliance managed with one application.)  I really recommend you make time to read it.

My other favorite quote from this article: “Application vendors, who cling to marketing hooks the way cats cling to curtains, have been only too happy to cater to this desire [to converge software].

When I first read the quote from John Wheeler about “going on faith regarding the vendor’s promises,” I thought “uh oh.” But the vendor, OpenPages, came through. That’s reason enough to read the article.