Links List 10.2.09

October 2nd, 2009 by Valerie Barber

Carefully wrapped around his promotion of Windows 7, Steve Ballmer’s customer letter on the “The New Normal” included  some very valid points that can be applied across all of IT operations. He offered some fundamentally sound insight on how businesses must respond to the call to “do more with less”. In the last 12 months the global economy has been reset at a lower baseline of activity: people borrow less, save more and spend more cautiously. This new normal is driving new efficiency, forcing us to simultaneously drive cost savings, improve productivity and speed innovation.

“A new generation of business solutions is eliminating the barriers between systems and applications, and automating routine tasks so IT professionals can focus on high-value work that is aligned to strategic priorities.”

Steve Ballmer

We love a good cloud story, but recently everyone seems to be getting somewhat giddy when it comes to the cloud. Larry Ellison’s cloud computing rant is all the rage and last week I linked to John Willis’ top 10 cloud denial statements. Now we’d like to interject a bit of cloud sanity and share David Linthicum’s four things that are killing cloud computing. He describes the forces from both camps – pro and con – that are hurting the potential value of cloud computing:

• Over-hyped Google Gmail outages – time for a reality check – Gmail’s uptime record is better than most enterprise email systems.
• The “cloud everything” crowd – those who jump on every popular trend as a strategy
• The “cloud is evil” crowd – they believe there is no security or privacy in the cloud and want to maintain control and power
• The cloud providers themselves – “When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” It’s unrealistic to believe that cloud computing is for everyone at all times, in all situations.

It’s safe to say that everyone knows of – or has been part of – a failed IT project. To help minimize the pain, you should be mindful of the built-in conflicts of interest that can exist between system integrators, vendors and customers. Each has budgets, schedules, personalities and resources to manage as well as their own definitions of success. While the parties may not intentionally disrupt projects, economic pressures can cause vendors and integrators to act in ways that do not serve customer interests.

Oracle threw another punch at IBM for stealing Sun customers by advertising in the WSJ and the Economist that the Sun/Oracle combination is faster than IBM’s fastest server. Oracle was fined $10,000 for making unsubstantiated claims because at the time the ad was run, there was no Sun/Oracle server for comparison. Apparently, making comparisons to a product that does not exist is not OK. (Maybe Ellison should focus more on learning the rules than on cloud computing.) They’ve been ordered not to run the ads again.

Finally, if you’re looking for a gift for your Trekker-friend who has everything, you may want to take a look at clothing that sends and receives messages via satellite. You can read all about the radiating patch antenna and the selected geometry that maintains ‘circular polarization’ of its radio signal even when bent. But be sure to read the reader comments section – further proof that ANY topic can eventually end up in a Beck vs. Obama tirade!

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