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?! ;-)

"We won't mention their name..."

Three weeks ago, I went to Microsoft Technology Center in Reston Virginia. I was part of the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) team which listened to Microsoft's overall strategy for the next three years, how Microsoft licenses were distributed across the FAA, and listened to their product experts regarding their new products and got a tour of their facility. It was a long session and some parts were interesting. I was amused when their product experts tried to toute the web 2.0 capabilities like creating wikis and blogs on the new Sharepoint product however I asked them if they did any research why they decided to include web 2.0 capabilities in their products. They had good reasons for the wikis since Wikis have proven to be an excellent source of knowledge via Collaborative means. However they didn't give me a good reason why they included blogging software, I realized that big companies like Microsoft provide the "new" capabilities eventhough they don't know if it will ever be used by their customers. I found that very interesting.

The other thing that I thought was hilarious was that their whole staff was taking stabs at Google. Eventhough Google and Microsoft product and services slightly overlap, I didn't think Microsoft and their employee would truly hate Google. For instance, one presentator talked about email services and used Hotmail as an example. Then he stated their products work well Yahoo and other email providers including "the other email provider who is still beta". Then he interjected, "how long are they going to have beta anyway" If you don't know what I am talking about then check out Google Mail or Gmail which is still beta.

Microsoft also stated they are rewriting their whole stack of products to introduce cloud computing since "the other company is planning to expand into this realm." Amazon.com currently provides this service and I know one person who uses their backup service and he is happy with them.

Anyway it looks like Bill Gates new tarket is "the company" that neither he or Microsoft will mention its name. "Hey Bill, 'Google' is not a buzzword but it is simply a company you are jealous of"

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.