Posts by David Gale
96 posts • joined Friday 31st October 2008 23:12 GMT
5G = Wi-Fi
'Mobile phone' network coverage is already geographically fragmented, so why wouldn't a new player come in and seize the urban market by partnering with a local authority's street lighting provider. A mesh Wi-Fi network run from antennae equipped streetlights could bring in much needed revenue for local government (and reduce their comms costs), at the same time as providing up to gigabit internet access.
The traditional telcos cling on to the current modus operandi despite knowing that their traditional operating and technology models risks being challenged. Why would I make a traditional voice call / send a text, if I could add much more functionality to a call or text using Skype / Facebook / Twitter? The traditional telcos had better hope that the IT world maintains its barrow boy focus on the short term... or get into bed with them very quickly.
David Gale
SITFO.org
It's much worse than that...
On no, it's much worse than that:
Microsoft didn't just miss the boat on the smartphone, they destroyed a cast-iron position of having an established open source developer base built around the only mobile platform that truly integrated with the enterprise stack. Why? Because in chasing the consumer space Microsoft chose to fight on the terms laid out by its competitors and ignored their existing customer base.
Given that I have been banging the table at Redmond and elsewhere, I have very little sympathy. We love what Microsoft used to do in the enterprise space but our strategy now is to disengage until there's a change at the top.
Once there's a credible Android desktop you will be able to count Microsoft's share price in cents...
David Gale
SITFO.org
Microsoft has lost the plot
Once upon a time, I worked for IBM. I tried very hard to warn the company that by focusing OS2 desktop on the top end of the business market, it was missing the trick that Microsoft was using which was to drive business sales by including a heavy focus on the consumer in their marketing. IBM's corporate arrogance and its failure to heed my warning has cost it $billions.
By the time Microsoft had matured from campus-style innovator to monolithic bureaucracy, the scenario had changed. Predominantly, consumers would use Windows at home because that's what they were used to at work.
Sadly, Microsoft has been blind to that shift in emphasis. First we saw it giving up on a business mobile platform that had a huge developer footprint and that integrated completely with its enterprise stack. The justification for this? "The money is where the consumer is." But the reality is that the Microsoft business mobile market has all but collapsed. Now we see the positioning of a consumer desktop as if it doesn't matter what works for business. The result? Microsoft will hand over enterprise and SMB market share to anyone who cares to make if their focus... and this includes Microsoft legacy product because the situation is actually so bad that there is now a growing market in retro-IT. For many SMBs, Windows Server 2003, Exchange 2003, Office 2K7, Windows XP SP3 will do nicely, thank you.
The writing is on the wall...
Tactical versus Strategic
The evidence demonstrates that the Cabinet Office, together with the rest of Whitehall, is being steered away from anything truly strategic by lobbied interests: http://sitfo.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/tactical-vs-strategic/ SITFO has advocated a model that includes a Strategic IT Framework and regional CIOs, a model that has been adopted and proven by other governments including Finland and China. When are the vested commercial interests going to be put to one side to allow the UK to deliver something that is sustainable?
Playing by the rules...
It's fortunate for Google that Microsoft are so busy trying to play the enterprise game to Google's rules that they miss the opportunity to wipe the floor with the competition. 'Reminds me of IBM trying to play by Microsoft's rules. It didn't work for them either...
What if they're wrong...?
The 'what if they're wrong' of the AGW lobbyists needs to include the FACT that current green-led strategies are fast rendering the West commercially uncompetitive. When governments have finished destroying entire industries and the communities that they support, who's going to deal with the civil unrest and disorder that results?
Whilst moving away from a dependency on carbon fuels may be a sensible LONG-term strategy, do not kid yourself that the current green lobby path does not constitute a further severe risk to already wobbly global stability...
Regional IT Services Centre
That makes a lot of sense but I would go further: Why not have a Regional IT Services Centre providing a Strategic IT Framework that will enable transformation across multiple public sector organisations?
David Gale
Not Every Cloud has a Silver Lining
This is what happens when you allow people who have little or no understanding of the business to set the agenda.
http://sitfo.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/not-every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining/
Told you so...
David Gale
SITFO.org
DoJ
Henry - Through the TADAG charade, we were able to demonstrate that the DoJ are in Microsoft's pocket. Not in the literal sense but there needs to be an appreciation that large corporates are given leeway to act effectively as an aggressive arm of foreign policy. In our case, when the main instigator is also linked to the Pickle Factory, it's hardly surprising that strings are pulled to overlook Microsoft's breach of its OWN documented NDAs.
Independent Sources?
Perhaps you ought to read the linked document before you dive in with your h'appennies worth on the validity of TADAG. The sources are internal to Microsoft and evidenced by Microsoft's own communications.
.. and of course
... and of course Microsoft would never rip off anything, would they?
http://www.TADAG.com
Posted in Microsoft dumps Metro from Windows 8
You've got it all wrong... Windows Ballmer
Windows Ballmer... as a lasting tribute to just how much damage a single CEO can do to a coproration.
There are people who still watch TV?
There are people who still watch TV? Oh, OK. Well enjoy your debate...
Foreign policy dictated news coverage, aspirational lifestyle dramas to keep the good little consumers focused on what we're supposed to want, sports that are more dictated by money than talent, all screened by broadcasters with a political axe to grind.
TV...? No, thanks.
Why would I want to do that? Go retro!
Let's not forget that integration with SkyDrive was REMOVED from Office 2007 as a means of leveraging Office 2010 sales, so it's not like the 'enhancements' are anything other than Microsoft's usual policy of licensed banditry.
Any roll-out of Sharepoint with a half-decent development team can make Sharepoint 2003 look as much like a social media tool as you like with very little effort. So, is Microsoft now assuming that buying decisions will no longer have technical input?
However, the central question has to be: "what part of this make my people more productive?"
SITFO.org is now advocating that customers who don't need to be on Microsoft's bleeding-edge run with Windows Server 2003, Exchange 2003, Sharepoint 2003, BizTalk Server 2006, Office 2007, Windows XP SP3 and Windows Mobile 6.1. We add .NET compliant EDRMS and BPM components for the complete SOA-based Strategic IT Framework.
Retro TC100 refresh please
Will someone please take the original HP TC1100 tablet design and stuff it full of modern kit? We still use our nearly decade-old TC1100s with full-strength Photoshop as part of a PC-based production workflow. The tablet capability saves hours and it's still the only tablet / laptop with a decent screen size that can fit (with keyboard in place) at a decent viewing angle on an aircraft seat tray. Docked with a full size screen, it's also a very usable desktop. It's time that HP realise the brilliance of that original design and did a refresh!
OS2
...and for the record, as an IBM employee, I was the guy who tried to 'open-door' IBM CEO John Akers to tell him that OS2 must be heavily marketed into the consumer space to drive upwards into the enterprise space. What a different world we could have lived in...
Dear Steve...
Dear Steve
The legacy that you were left was a company that had the best enterprise integration stack on the planet. Whilst it's true that many of your own people didn't fully understand the full potential, there was enough there for you to be able to forge ahead.
First, we had the compartmentalised focus on product groups (that originally had a focus on split up / sell off) which cut across the long-term interests of your customers and saw strategic products being deployed tactically in the enterprise space just to hit the numbers.
Then, we had this dream of making MS a consumer-focused company, a 'vision' so fundamentally flawed that one has to wonder what your shareholders were thinking of.
The reason for MS's existence, in the face of IBM's OS2 PC operating system is that MS took Windows to the consumer space but the success was based on the consumer then taking Windows to the enterprise space.
You have enough good people in MS who really know how to leverage the advantage of the integrated MS product stack. Let them do their job and stop letting beancounters get in the way.
Terminal Decline
...and for what?
So that some tactically focused muppet can keep their numbers on track whilst the rest of MS lose their jobs?
Utter madness! They deserve what's coming to them and so too do the shareholders for being spineless, vaccuous morons.
I can hear the Emperor's fiddle... What's that burning smell...?
You have to ask how long it will be before shareholders realise that a split-up and sell-off of Microsoft might not be quite the bonanza that they had anticipated. When they do realise, they're going to want to see a more strategic leverage of Microsoft's strengths rather the persistent 'white socks and Gucci shoes' pile 'em high tactical emphasis.
For goodness sake, Microsoft, get a grip!
Sophisticated?
"Ads that follow you from site to site" = sophisticated?
More like a pain in the butt that's likely to disencourage me from visiting those sites.
Advertising executives selling to themselves again...
Opportunity missed... again!
Government should be focusing on a public sector network to deliver a PROPER shared IT infrastructure capability amongst public sector organisations.
For example:
Q: WHY are there over a hundred individual implementations of Exchange server in public sector organisations in my region?
A: Because public sector directors are parochial players, public sector organisations don't have the skills or structure to run with a formal enterprise architecture, government will not clamp down on the parochial but profitable remit of public sector suppliers, and lastly, because, depsite the promises in opposition, we always end up with a clueless f*ckwit of a minister with no remit to deliver a coherent long-term strategy.
What strategy?
Exactly what is the ICT Strategy annual update going to update? There would need to be a strategy in place first, not a shopping list...
Why?
Why are they buying third party certificates?
Slate with a raised dock...?
A slate with a raised dock? Whatever will they think of next? http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/HP%20docking%20station%20003.jpg circa 2003... mine's still going strong and is a valuable component of my workflow because it runs the same apps as my workstation...
Posted in Melting Arctic leads to snowy winters
Re: Re: Re: Re: This just leaves one small question.
Here are two statements that are completely agreed on by the IPCC. It is crucial to be aware of their implications:
1. A doubling of CO2, by itself, contributes only about 1C to greenhouse warming. All models project more warming, because, within models, there are positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds, and these feedbacks are considered by the IPCC to be uncertain.
2. If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C. The higher sensitivity of existing models is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments.
Given the above, the notion that alarming warming is ‘settled science’ should be offensive to any sentient individual, though to be sure, the above is hardly emphasized by the IPCC.
Taken from:
Reconsidering the Climate Change Act Global Warming: How to approach the science.
Richard S. Lindzen
Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Seminar at the House of Commons Committee Rooms
Westminster, London
22nd February 2012
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/rsl-houseofcommons-2012.pdf
Posted in Melting Arctic leads to snowy winters
Re: Re: Re: Re: This just leaves one small question.
...and here's the graph showing the relative decrease in Arctic Sea Ice compared to Antarctic Sea Ice: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/sea-ice-2012/
Posted in Melting Arctic leads to snowy winters
Re: Re: Re: Re: This just leaves one small question.
Errr... no it's not. Check out the IPCC's own data: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/improved-sea-ice-videos/
Posted in Melting Arctic leads to snowy winters
Re: Re: This just leaves one small question.
Errr... Antarctic ice is increasing.
Posted in Melting Arctic leads to snowy winters
Re: or, watch the movie
Oh no, it's not even climate change anymore. It's 'moving to a low carbon economy'. Do keep up!
"Yes that's right, the last time I went to buy an operating system for my computer, I thought "you know what, I'm going with Windows this time becasue the logo looks cool".
Aesthetics over function? With the exception of the design (sic) community, isn't that exactly what the majority of people do when they're choosing a Mac?
A very apt logo given that the IT world is dumbing down and Microsoft couldn't recognise a strategic advantage if it jumped up and kicked them in the head...
MotoGP
Whilst I will miss watching F1, I will get used to not watching it in the same way as I have with football and cricket. The chap who mentioned MotoGP has a point that I'd forgotten. I watched it a few times last year and was bitten by the bug, massively more entertaining in every way compared to F1: closer racing, more exciting spectacle, down to earth competitors and commentators, and a lack of the pompous, politically correct, up my own orifice BS that beleagures F1.
Bad Miscalculation by F1
"While World+Dog barked viciously at the new arrangement, die-hard fans of the sport will no doubt stump up the cash regardless, reluctantly piling their pounds into Murdoch's packed pockets."
Really? That's a bad miscalculation by F1. I and many others will not knowingly put a penny into Murdoch's pocket. F1 will go the same way as football and cricket in the UK: millions will stop watching it which, as already proven, will rip out young grassroots growth leaving an ageing audience with little relevance to sponsors.
It is the death-knell for F1.
Wonderful... now what about a coherent strategy?
Wonderful! Now what about a coherent strategy for the enterprise? All the technically productive focus in the world will not make up for a complete dearth of strategy.
This at a time when Apple's raw underbelly is exposed as people find out the hard way (again!) that standalone gizmos do not an enterprise architecture make.
Don't worry, Steve, we gave up on any expectation of ethical standards years ago...
http://www.TADAG.com
Small fry compared to the manipulation of their own index
This is small fry compared to the manipulation of their own search index. The regularity with which inconvenient political truths are 'forgotten' by Google's index evidences a direct, political manipulation of the internet which should concern us all. Would I trust Google? Not a chance.
WP7?
WP7? Wasn't that that consumer incarnation of windows mobile that scrubbed nearly a decade of XDA development?
Anyone who has invested in MS technologies has found their 'open source' niche with XP and Office 2K7 on the desktop and WM6.5 on their mobile. You'll note that the now ancient HTC HD2 is STILL holding its price.
Microsoft's current crop of barrow-boy executives will never understand strategy. They need a boardroom clear-out.
Having personally witnessed the lying, deceiving filth that masqueraded as the FSA (go on, sue me - I have the evidence!) covering up data losses and fraud inside the financial services industry in the Noughties, backed up by the 'safe pairs of hands' that sat on the bench, I can only ask what did anyone expect? If one struggles to get Law in an English court when vested interests are at stake, what chance of justice?
Readers will note that the course of action recommended by this particular safe pair of hands is a legislative chamber stuffed fulled of lawyers.
There's one Law for them that 'as and another for them that 'asn't...
Show me the business case...
The only business case for public investment for superfast broadband that I can conceive is:
A NATIONAL PUBLIC SECTOR fibre network to deliver shared IT services to public sector organisations - that's publicly owned, NOT the over-priced charade that's 'supplied' by the telcos. The business case for shared services disappears the moment a private network supplier is factored in.
Everything else can be a condition of a telco licence to be funded by the private sector.
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
Great ideas will always fail if the marketing is poor
Great ideas will always fail if the marketing is poor - I'm still a regular user of an HP TC1100 Windows Tablet that must be 7-8 year old by now. It runs Windows 7 with ease but I prefer XP. Abysmal marketing by HP and a lukewarm effort by Microsoft killed off what is still the most functional business tablet ever produced.
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
Posted in The effect of a comms meltdown
Not Every Cloud has a Silver Lining
You were warned: http://sitfo.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/not-every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining/
Java...Schmava
An interesting conflict... until you learn that it's underpinned by Java - LMAO. Has anyone reviewed the cost and availability of Java skills lately?
Posted in HP murders webOS tablets, phones
Baby and Bathwater?
I'm still using a 2003 HP TC1100 tablet that's now happily running Windows 7. It's still my main mobile machine and I still use it to present video and other heavy-duty media in large, corporate and government presentations. I think we're used to HP throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They stole a march on the opposition with what is still the best tablet designed for business use and then promptly junked it. So, none of the current 'direction' should be of any surprise...
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
No, thanks!
If by 'common set of trademark standards' you mean allowing a German court to rule on UK patent law then, no, thank you.
Customer focus?
Would it be too much to ask that they move to a name that starts from the customers' perspective, as I advised the Cabinet Office five years ago...
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
Dishonest? Microsoft? Ssshurely not!
"Behaved dishonestly, and thereby acted in a manner calculated or likely to destroy trust and confidence" - That's a bit rich coming from Microsoft. www.tadag.com
What about governance over IT strategy and enterprise architecture?
There's another area of governance, that can be quite thin, that prevents business managers and suppliers proliferating the deployment of non-strategic point solutions to nail their short-term targets. The individual business cases for these projects can look compelling but unless there is real governance around the enterprise architecture and the IT strategy, the costs of administering and integrating this mish-mash can escalate out of control. In my experience, code monkeys are only too pleased to immerse themselves in these 'highly focussed' projects as a means of demonstrating their prowess and, if the end result nails someone's promotion or sales target, they can develop an unstoppable momentum. The key to keeping the enterprise architecture and the IT strategy firmly on track is buy-in at board level and having senior IT management with a clearly defined architecture linked to the vision for the business. Fail to do this and I can show you examples of 'quick wins' that have cost organisations £millions in the longer term.
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
IQ?
There seem to be a number of posters confusing IQ with academic capability and knowledge. The statistics quoted in this piece don't stand up to scrutiny either, or was that a test of gullibility from the author?
How bad can Microsoft get?
The success of the Blackberry is indicative of:
1. How badly Microsoft have lost the plot.
2. The lack of corporate governance over IT strategy, evidenced by the growth of unsustainable 'point solutions' implemented by business managers as a tick in the box for their career advancement.
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
Posted in Local councils shed CIOs as cuts bite
What CIOs?
In my experience of dealing with over two hundred local authorities across the world, not one in the UK has had a properly empowered CIO. So, talk of getting rid of CIOs seems to miss the mark. The single largest IT cost for the public sector is driven by the complete dearth of strategic thinking. Too many authorities are at the mercy of senior managers with short-term, performance-managed targets, facilitated by IT suppliers with a view on equally short-term sales. There are very few local authorities with coherent IT or Information Management strategies that have the governance in place to prevent short-term 'point solutions'.
Socitm's 'Planting the Flag' is an excellent start at defining what needs to be done from a strategic perspective but, as things stand, the public sector has neither the skills nor the inclination to think long-term. Let's get controversial: What do you do when the officer with the short-term mission and a cosy band of preferred suppliers in tow is the CEO, backed by a chamber full of clueless councillors?
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
Blog at: http://www.sitfo.wordpress.com
