As a longtime troubleshooter and seeker of stability in IT infrastructure I would say that Microsoft's "abandonment" of XP as an operating system effective June 30th 2008 is shameful at best. Realistically they are not really abandoning XP but surely making it harder to implement it on home machines or others bought through retail channels. This impacts individuals and small businesses more than enterprises.
With the advent of Service Pack 2 came one of the more stable OS's we have known. Everyone knew how to use it, most applications ran on it, and drivers were seldom an issue. Now that Vista is being forced on a small segment of the user population we now have the joy of doing downgrades, making application performance and drivers more of an issue. Three cheers for Microsoft indicating they would "support" XP through April 2014. The question is, if you are going to support it that long why not make it easy to get it for those who want it?
A majority of enterprises I speak with are delaying Vista implementation until 2009 or after and now that Windows 7 is slated for delivery in January 2009 who would go with Vista anyway? Perhaps it is because Microsoft has warned all of us that going straight from XP to Windows 7 is not advisable, or that they have never met a delivery schedule for a new OS since..... well ever.
Suggestion for Microsoft- Let XP be widely available until support is no longer available and let the end user or their support staff decide which OS is the most appropriate one to use.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Hello, Nice to see you
Those of us who have been around for a while have heard that one of the major justifications for video conferencing is to cut down on the need for travel. Recent conversations I have been involved in indicate that this may be coming true finally. There are organization out there that are justifying video conferencing enhancements through travel reductions. This is not hard to believe with the price of airfares and such.
What strikes me now is the question of whether face time is really necessary these days. Social networking has advanced to the point that some people are falling in love and practically getting married through the internet and yet we still have vendors inventing ways to have video to our desktops. One recent article quoted a Skype product manger indicating that nearly 25% of their traffic was video based. Is this a toy or a real business tool? In the same article was quote about Tandberg coming out with a $1,500 desktop phone that provided DVD quality images on a 10 inch screen. Is that really what enterprises really need these days or again, is this going to just be a toy?
Video is certainly an important way of communicating but the open question is, how necessary is it for effective discussions, collaboration and productivity? My feeling right now is that it is not really a necessity. To prove that point I would suggest that there is very little video conferencing going on between North America and APAC outsourcers. If it was all that important we would see a growing traffic volume between these two regions of the world. There is not evidence that this is happening, at least no yet.
Until then, I would say that it is great to see you, but not necessary to get the job done.
What strikes me now is the question of whether face time is really necessary these days. Social networking has advanced to the point that some people are falling in love and practically getting married through the internet and yet we still have vendors inventing ways to have video to our desktops. One recent article quoted a Skype product manger indicating that nearly 25% of their traffic was video based. Is this a toy or a real business tool? In the same article was quote about Tandberg coming out with a $1,500 desktop phone that provided DVD quality images on a 10 inch screen. Is that really what enterprises really need these days or again, is this going to just be a toy?
Video is certainly an important way of communicating but the open question is, how necessary is it for effective discussions, collaboration and productivity? My feeling right now is that it is not really a necessity. To prove that point I would suggest that there is very little video conferencing going on between North America and APAC outsourcers. If it was all that important we would see a growing traffic volume between these two regions of the world. There is not evidence that this is happening, at least no yet.
Until then, I would say that it is great to see you, but not necessary to get the job done.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Out with the Old, and in with the New?
I had a need recently to go out and purchase a new laptop. Not rocket science by any means but it sure seemed to get to that point by the time I was done. All that led to more conclusions. First some background.
For my wedding anniversary this year I wanted to buy my wife her own laptop. She was the only one in the house without one so it made sense. Also, having her have a machine that was portable would allow for her to use a computer without needing to be in the office. This is not convenient at times as I frequently need to be alone in office for meetings and conferences as well as recording web and voice mail broadcasts.
The trouble began when I went looking for a laptop with XP preinstalled on it. I have had no end of issues with machines requiring to be downgraded from Vista to XP. I did not want to have to deal with all the issues of training my wife on Vista, nor dealing with driver issues due to the downgrade. So with that I was off looking for a machine with XP on it. After looking long and hard I only found 1 out of about 50 that I looked at at various places. I wound up with a Lenovo machine from an online retailer. To their credit, I had the machine in 3 days, just in time for my anniversary, and it has worked perfectly thus far.
So what's the point? First, I believe all consumers and enterprises should be afforded the opportunity to choose which OS they want. It would be in Microsoft's best interest to offer both XP and Vista and allow all OEMs to do the same. They would be best served to make Vista be so compelling to change to that requests for XP drop to near zero. At that point only should they discontinue supporting it. Better yet, how about letting another organization support it on into the future. Thus far it is apparent that the only reason for the uptake in Vista is that Microsoft has forced it upon the distribution channel. Owners are truning off so many features of Vista just to make it perform that it is hardy worth having it.
I will do everything I can to stick with XP until it is "time" to switch. In the mean time, the only thing getting old around here is me.
For my wedding anniversary this year I wanted to buy my wife her own laptop. She was the only one in the house without one so it made sense. Also, having her have a machine that was portable would allow for her to use a computer without needing to be in the office. This is not convenient at times as I frequently need to be alone in office for meetings and conferences as well as recording web and voice mail broadcasts.
The trouble began when I went looking for a laptop with XP preinstalled on it. I have had no end of issues with machines requiring to be downgraded from Vista to XP. I did not want to have to deal with all the issues of training my wife on Vista, nor dealing with driver issues due to the downgrade. So with that I was off looking for a machine with XP on it. After looking long and hard I only found 1 out of about 50 that I looked at at various places. I wound up with a Lenovo machine from an online retailer. To their credit, I had the machine in 3 days, just in time for my anniversary, and it has worked perfectly thus far.
So what's the point? First, I believe all consumers and enterprises should be afforded the opportunity to choose which OS they want. It would be in Microsoft's best interest to offer both XP and Vista and allow all OEMs to do the same. They would be best served to make Vista be so compelling to change to that requests for XP drop to near zero. At that point only should they discontinue supporting it. Better yet, how about letting another organization support it on into the future. Thus far it is apparent that the only reason for the uptake in Vista is that Microsoft has forced it upon the distribution channel. Owners are truning off so many features of Vista just to make it perform that it is hardy worth having it.
I will do everything I can to stick with XP until it is "time" to switch. In the mean time, the only thing getting old around here is me.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Telecom Expenses
Nearly seven years ago I was introduced to the concept of automated telecom expense management (TEM). Nearly 30 years ago I was introduced to the concept of telecom billing being messed up. The question is "Why the gap in time"?
It has been widely established that any telecom bill, fixed or mobile, of any size is probably in error. The really cool part is that it is very predictable in which direction the errors are, and it is certainly not in the favor of the enterprise. Most billings from the big telecom providers are in error from 1o% to over 30% in favor of the carrier. Some larger enterprises spend north of $50 Million on voice and data transport facilities and other services. The net result is there is $5 Million plus to be had by doing a good job managing these expenses. Imagine those savings falling strait to the bottom line.
The process to achieve this used to be complex but has gotten a lot easier these days. It used to be that you had to hire a very smart person, who was a little suicidal, to look through your bills to find the errors and to argue with the carriers to get the money back. These days you can implement one of a number of software applications or sign up for a service to do the function for you ( for a rather hefty fee). The carriers have become accustom to providing the bills in electronic form, although they are not very willing to do so initially. The key is to know what your "inventory" of telecom assets looks like and then be able to match it against the actual expenses. Only those that match get paid and the rest get disputed until you get a refund. This can take many months but the money usually comes back eventually. Once the initial reconciliation is done, change control becomes very critical. One would assume that change control is part of your everyday processes so we will not dwell on this.
Telecom Expense Management (TEM) is ideal for delivery as a service (SaaS) or as a stand alone application but does need special attention to detail as billing formats vary widely among the carriers, and among each service they provide. Remember that most carrier billing systems are actually a collection of inherited applications from many decades of mergers, with very little integration. That said, it is well worth the effort with the ROI never in doubt.
It has been widely established that any telecom bill, fixed or mobile, of any size is probably in error. The really cool part is that it is very predictable in which direction the errors are, and it is certainly not in the favor of the enterprise. Most billings from the big telecom providers are in error from 1o% to over 30% in favor of the carrier. Some larger enterprises spend north of $50 Million on voice and data transport facilities and other services. The net result is there is $5 Million plus to be had by doing a good job managing these expenses. Imagine those savings falling strait to the bottom line.
The process to achieve this used to be complex but has gotten a lot easier these days. It used to be that you had to hire a very smart person, who was a little suicidal, to look through your bills to find the errors and to argue with the carriers to get the money back. These days you can implement one of a number of software applications or sign up for a service to do the function for you ( for a rather hefty fee). The carriers have become accustom to providing the bills in electronic form, although they are not very willing to do so initially. The key is to know what your "inventory" of telecom assets looks like and then be able to match it against the actual expenses. Only those that match get paid and the rest get disputed until you get a refund. This can take many months but the money usually comes back eventually. Once the initial reconciliation is done, change control becomes very critical. One would assume that change control is part of your everyday processes so we will not dwell on this.
Telecom Expense Management (TEM) is ideal for delivery as a service (SaaS) or as a stand alone application but does need special attention to detail as billing formats vary widely among the carriers, and among each service they provide. Remember that most carrier billing systems are actually a collection of inherited applications from many decades of mergers, with very little integration. That said, it is well worth the effort with the ROI never in doubt.
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