Surprise, Surprise,...blah tech isn't working

Surprise. Surprise. A few days ago, IBM replaced its CEO Ginni Rometti, with Arvind Krishna. According to Barrons, IBM sales have fallen by 25% in the last eight years, while other tech giants sales are doing well. In the previous eight years, I haven't seen IBM make the rounds to sell their products like DB2, Watson, WebSphere, and others.  They are not marketing their services well.

These days when I think about IBM, I see it as a "blah" technology company that lacks excitement. I used to think of Microsoft the same way. Things changed after Satya Nadella took reigns at Microsoft. They made a few exciting acquisitions that tell me Microsoft (specifically the current CEO) have a vision. These acquisitions diversify their offering of services. Here is the timeline:

1. Microsoft made its flagship product Microsoft Office accessible on non-Windows devices.
2. Microsoft purchased Minecraft for $2.5 billion. I thought this was a head-scratcher, but my kids love Minecraft. Right off the bat, Microsoft made inroads with the next generation, which will be earning income in the five to ten years.
3. Microsoft introduces Windows 10, and it is a solid Operation System with a smooth user experience. When l look at Windows 7 and others, I am reminded of Steve Balmer and his poor image of screaming at developers. Steve Balmer and his version of Microsoft.  Steve is not missed. He is better off running the Los Angeles Clippers.
4. Microsoft then bought LinkedIn.
5. Microsoft purchased Github.  As a developer,  I thought it was huge because it showed Microsoft's commitment to the developer community and the open-source community.

When I see IBM,  I don't see any innovation, and it appears to be the "Big Blue Stale Machine."  Is IBM's Watson ready to collect its Social Security checks because it seems to be aging pretty fast?  The company I am really concerned about is Google. Google recently stopped offering its core product Google Search Appliance, and it bundled it with its email.  Gmail is good, but it doesn't provide the email experience of Outlook.  Google's founders stepped away from leadership and gave it an up-and-coming CEO  Sundar Pichai.  The sudden disappearing act by founding computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Bring doesn't build my confidence in Google.  Memes like this one below or The Wallstreet Journal article will not help Google's image.

For Google to build their trust with me, I want to see Google's founders take a more active role in the technical community.  I would also like to see user-centric innovation.  Having the most robust and secure cloud in the market is not appealing to me because they don't market it, and their tools are not user-friendly.  It's time for Larry and Sergi to stop playing in their lab and step up with the big boys like Satya Nadella, MarkZuckerburg, Reed Hastings, Tim Cook, and others.

Speaking about Tim Cook, who is the CEO of Apple Inc.  He has not done anything earth-shattering, but he has kept Apple with the times.  The launch of Apple TV is great, but I would like to see more innovation come out of Apple. Shrewd CEOs are strategic, operations focused, and can be ruthless.  Very few leaders are also innovative.  I see Steve Jobs in this category.  As you may know, the US government is trying to wrestle with Apple to get into its devices via a backdoor.  It will be interesting to see if Apple will every give-in.

Unlike Apple, Mark Zuckerburg, and his company Facebook seem to give in to external pressures.  According to Facebook, they are going to let politicians publish political ads.  Facebook is trying to diversify its portfolio of products, but I don't know how they can much progress since I don't trust.  It's going to be hard for Facebook to get back in the game until they gain back the public trust. It can be done.

I am interested to see how Netflix will evolve. Scott Hastings and his team revolutionized streaming digital content to mass audiences. Netflix has created a great market for actors, actresses, producers, directors, and other auxiliary roles for making movies, documentaries, and tv shows. With Disney+, Peacock TV, CBS Access, HBO, and others are trying to catch up to Netflix. According to my graphic, Netflix needs to move into gaming and devices to differentiate itself from other sorts of offerings.

I believe Amazon has reached its potential with e-commerce, and I like the way they are going with Amazon cloud and digital content. Amazon will evolve and begin to the left on my image via Amazon Web Services (AWS).

In summary,  big tech companies need to offer a diverse set of services which gives them the flexibility to grow and help them to minimize the risk.

2 days @Gartner Symposium

This is my second year at the Gartner Symposium IT/XPo in Orlando, Florida.  After the first two days of the symposium, I believe the mantra of the symposium is the three new pillars of technology which are the glued together by information.  The pillars are:

1. Cloud Computing
2. Mobile Computing
3. Social Computing

At first you think this is just bunch of hype.  What can a bunch of research analysts know about cloud, mobile, or anything else in IT.  Are these Gartner analysts creating trends from pure ignorance?   The answer is,"No"  Companies like Amazon, Google and Apple are creating technologies which are extremely disruptive and are causing problems in a positive way.  Today Gartner mentioned Google and Apple as the innovators.  I believe Amazon should be in that group. Amazon built the EC2  before IBM can spell cloud.
Amazon's model tends rely on developing services which are off-shoots out of its book business.  The Amazon cloud was a game changer and now Amazon's Silk which is a cloud browser will change the way things are done on the mobile space.

I attended couple of mobile sessions today and coule of social media sessions today.  Did I learn anything from these sessions?  The answer is Yes.  Social media has a defined lifespan.  Mobile computing is going to take over and the concept of cloud brokers was introduced.

I personally believe that cloud will reduce costs in the long run and increase throughput. I also believe that mobile will allow users to be more immersed in the internet and social computing is not a IT phenomenon but rather a social one.

The thing that caught my ear was the case study they did about the financial organization and how they built visual tools.  They updated their processes to be more "agile" so that the customer is engaged more in the development process.  I am therefore waiting for Agile computing.  This is the next big thing.  Once these technologies are stablize and drive costs down, businesses will be looking for more agility from their IT since the users will be changing their needs based on their social network.

Need to have an exit strategy

I believe it is time for me to get out of the business of IT. Here are the reasons:

• Deer in headlights: I talk to some of my senior managers and they look at me as a deer in the headlights when I tell them about the innovations of Ruby on Rails or noSQL databases. On the other hand, if I was tell them about client server technologies of the late 1990s then we have a conversation. I see myself going down the same path in the next twenty years unless technology is outsourced.
  



• Outsource IT: This brings me to the second point. IT is so commoditized. Within a couple of years, I won't need to worry about the operations part since most of this will be outsourced. I heard of government agencies outsourcing the whole Blackberry program to a third party vendor. WHAT?!!! All those jobs! I know this is a big part of the whole world we live in. Do I want my job outsourced in the next five years? I don't think so.




• Open Source - innovating out of existence: As open source technologies rapidly evolve, more businesses are relying on market analysis and large vendors to recommend what their IT strategy should be. Should a CIO look at open source technologies to enable their IT strategy or look to proven technologies which could be legacy in the next five years? I would guess the latter. As Oracle, IBM, Microsoft and Google start putting cloud services, they are going to bring down costs and at the same time bring down the IT salaries. I believe the days of an Oracle DBA making a decent living are history. An Oracle DBA will make a similar salary as a typical engineer, which is 20% - 25% less then a typical IT staffer. These companies will also start filtering the Open Source technologies and the open source world will become an R&D lab. This is the best bet for any business since businesses don't have the time to update infrastructure every quarter.

What should I do then? I need to refine my customer relationship skills well enough to say, "Would you like fries with that?" ;-)

Places that I would like to work

As an information technologist, I often ask the question, "Where would be the ideal place for an information technologist to work at?" Here are some of the places I usually end up with (rather than bore you, the readers, with paragraphs of explanations, here are one liners):

1. Amazon : - Can we say EC2. Love to play with it
   
2. Apple : - I would love to work with their innovators. Time to build my CV called iCareer.
   
3. Cisco : - Eventhough I am not a Network specialist. I like their CEO since he seems to have a vision. I could work on the SOA stack.
   
4. Facebook : - They made PHP cool! They have the data and the advertisers. Ingredients for some great business apps. My JavaScript skills are pretty good.
   
5. Google : - I am nervous about their CEO getting pushed out. They have some cool minds. I heard their Product Managers are worse than slave drivers. Unfortunately I don't have a Computer Science degree to apply their.
   
6. IBM : - They have the technology unfortunately with my professional experience I will probably end up working with their consulting services. If I worked there, I would probably say this all the time, "Have you looked at Websphere or the Rational Toolset?"
   
7. Microsoft : - They are known for building UI friendly and scalable solutions for medium sized companies. I am waiting for their "cloud" solution where every local and state governments will deploy their solution. If I worked there then I would be working on the .Cloud stack.
   
8. Oracle : - They have it all. Out of all the companies, they look every intriguing. I would work for them if I didn't travel alot and get to build some enterprise level solutions.
9. RedHat : - They are not as big as Oracle but they look promising. Their acquisitions have been quite good and they are always pushing open source. Guys, you need to get Apache Wave and build a Social Media platform.
   
10. Salesforce : - Give me the cloud. Nothing like working for a guy called Benioff! Seriously though, they look good and promising.
    
11. VCE : - Nothing like working for a company which is based on an agreement by three giants: Cisco, EMC and VMWare.
    
12. VMWare : - Hey Rod (Johnson that is). Need a Java guy!

I didn't include:

1. EMC : - I had a bad taste with their consultants. Documentum is overrated!
2. SAP : - They are big and they are European. My french is rusty but would be interested in a strategic position there.

In all seriousness, they all look good however I don't want to be a consultant with them but rather be a solution architect and be involved in their strategic decision making process. Any takers?! ;-)

That was Suite! Not really

This morning I was asked to go to an all morning presentation by Oracle. The presentation explained Oracle's vision with its products and its newly acquired company's, BEA, products. The core presentation was given by Thomas Kurian Senior Vice President for Oracle's Fusion Middleware. The presentation was insightful and it showed that Oracle has a defined and definite vision. I, however, being a skeptic will accept Oracle's vision when I see results. Other than enjoying Oracle's flagship product which is their relational database product, I have not been impressed with Oracle products. That being said, I do believe that Oracle is going to keep the Weblogic Application Server as well as other quality products. It is going to be interesting how other vendors will compete with Oracle in the Application and Middleware space.

Like Oracle, IBM has been buying strategic companies like Oracle but they NOT are buying monster size companies like BEA or PeopleSoft. IBM products work well however they are very expensive and their support is expensive as well. Oracle is following the Sun and RedHat approach which is to follow the Open Source paradigm. Thomas Kurian stated that Oracle is going to streamline the Weblogic IDE,which is based on Eclipse framework, make it open source. It will be interesting where Oracle Fusion Middleware will be in the next two to five years. During the presentation, Thomas Kurian talked about the Weblogic Suite, SOA Suite, BPM Suite and every other Suite possible. So in closing I say, "That's suite!" Actually I say this Larry Ellison, show me good software and I will say, "Suite software". If the software is not good then I will call the Oracle Fusion Middleware, law-suit software and not suite software.

Buzz words 2.0

In the last year or two, I have noticed that buzz words have a version number next them. I am sure you have heard words like: Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, eGov 2.0, Web 3.0, etc., etc. Here is my theory on this recent phenomenon. Companies, which have been trying to sell new functionalities added to old technologies, have been tagging tech words with version or sequel numbers. By adding a version or a sequel number, the marketing folks are trying to imply that the technology has been reborn and it is cooler and faster. To which I say, "eh...okay?" Is web 2.0 or web 3.0 really that different from Web 1.0? Maybe back-end processing or user interaction is different, however like any technology there are benefits and drawbacks.

Okay, I am going to write a blurb about the latest and neatest technologies. Here it goes,

"Last week, I went to a conference in Boulder, Colorado where major vendors came to promote their new products. Here are couple of products, I really liked:

1. Collaborative Databases - Oracle has recently released their new collaborative database which they are promoting as RDBMS 2.0. This technologies lets users use Web 2.0 and SQL 3.5 to generate reports in format Report 4.0 and the reports follow the Business Intelligence 2.0 terminology. The front-end is in Flex and Oracle is promoting the Collaborative databases as part of their SOA 2.0 paradigm.
2. Java 9 - Sun just released Java 9 which follows the new trend in programming. It is called predictive programming. The new JVM, which is based on Linux 3.0, can predict how a Java programmer will program the application before s/he can start programming. Sun also said they are currently working on JUnit 3.41 which will generate the unit tests before the program is created using the predictive programming.

"

Do you see how ridiculous my blurb sounds unfortunately it could trick a non-technical decision maker in believing in that the blurb is infact true. I am waiting for Blog 2.0 or Blog 3.0. Here is an IBM ad which makes me chuckle every time I see.

Is Microsoft really the dark side?

Unlike some of colleagues and friends, I have worked mostly with open source products and I like the open source world. Most of the technology is well built and there is a community of developers, testers and business sponsors who spend alot of time and money to get the product right. There seems to be a common understanding that open source technology is flexible enough where it can be customized to a certain requirement and they cost is minimal when working with Microsoft.

On the other hand, Microsoft tends to dictate when its new products and technologies are going to released. They also dictate how their products should be licensed and flexibility is minimal. As a technologist, they seem to black box all of their technology.

Here are some of typical complaints regarding Microsoft:
Not Best of Breed
I have heard people complain left and right that their product is not the best of breed. For example their SQL Server product line is not the best relational database and it is ideal for small to medium implementations.

Tie Their products to the Windows Operating System
A few years ago, the technology community was complaining that Microsoft tied their internet browser, the Internet Explorer, to the operating system and that is how they beat their competition in the internet browser space

They eye-gouge their customers with licenses and other products
More and more end users are complaining that Microsoft is clamping down on how licenses are tracked in their software. It's now ever harder to steal their software.

I admit that these are valid complaints and lately I have realized their products aren't that bad.

Things I like about Microsoft products:
Their products integrate well together. I used to take this fact for granted until I worked with Oracle suite of products. Oracle's products don't talk to other products but they don't even talk to each other.

Their products are easy to use.
Beginning with their Windows product line, Microsoft products are easy to use and they are visually appealing to their end users. Until three or four years ago, Java didn't have robust debugging in their various IDEs. I remember working with Visual Studio many years ago and I still remember that their debugging was the best. SQL Server has had a great Graphical User Interface (GUI) for many years. During this Oracle only provided SQL*Net.

Even though we complain Microsoft is being selfish and opportunistic as business. I have to say that they have never sacrificed their core capabilities which is:
their products are easy to use and their products integrate well with each other. It is true that their products aren't the best in the breed but at least theywork.

In the last year or two, I have been extremely disappointed in how Oracle products are built and how they work. All of Oracle's products are tied to the database product line. You look at their JMS implementation, their PL/SQL based web services, their ESB which is tied to their database, etc., and etc. Oracle is doing the same thing as Microsoft did. As Microsoft tied their products to their operating system, we see that Oracle is currently tying their products to the database. If I were a CIO or the CTO, I wouldn't buy anything from Oracle other than their relational database products.

Unlike Microsoft, IBM sells their products for an extremely high price. Their products work well, unfortunately I wouldn't trust IBM since their business practices are questionable.

The biggest competition for Microsoft is Google. I am still wondering what is Google. Google sells online advertising, they have a search appliance and bunch of software products which are good but they don't address any core requirement. They seem to create a buzz on how they market their products. For instance, remember how they created a buzz for their email capability. They gave email accounts via email invites which created a buzz. They are geniuses in viral marketing but they really don't have a product. What I mean by a product, if I were to liquidate Google then what would I sell. Their search technology, their online software and their advertising business and now their mobile software. According my sources in US Department of Justice, Google's Android software is currently used by alot hackers to hack into mobile phone. Things like this make wonder...Is Google really out there to improve our lives or just market themselves a higher profit margin.

Yahoo! - I like Yahoo!. I have been a loyal customer of Yahoo! from 1996. They categorize and sell information, information products and more. I really like their stuff and their product might suffer a little when Microsoft buys them but I would rather see Microsoft buy them than Google beat them.

In conclusion, I still prefer open source technologies but I now also appreciate the value of Microsoft. They are not that bad after all.