IT matters

Over the last couple of weeks I had two people urge me to go and read Groundswell. So I did. If you haven't already, I would recommend it.

In summary, it's probably the closest thing to a road map for implementing Enterprise 2.0 in companies (although to their credit, they don't call it that).

It's chock full of data (some of which will surprise you) and case studies. It also makes concrete recommendations how to evaluate what's the best strategy for a company (should we do a blog, an open forum or a video on You Tube). And best of all, the language the use (for the most part) is clear (focussed on business value not technology) and practical (always refreshing).

Continue reading "Groundswell: A game plan for Enterprise 2.0?" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's always interesting to see how much companies are spending on the race to enable cloud computing. The Economist, in its latest edition, reports on the race to build out data centers and its implications on the enviornment. Some highlights:

• Google has 36 data centers with about 1m servers
• America alone has about 7000 data centers
• Microsoft is adding 20,000 servers a month to its data centers
  

More here. 

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 01:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Xobni (Inbox spelled backwards) is a neat little tool that leverages data / connections (some would call it spam) that all of us have in our inboxes and turns that into useful information. (This really belongs in a blog on personal productivity but it thought it may be interesting to people here that are drowning in email.)

 
Some of the features in Xobni (such as search) can be found in either Google Desktop or in Microsoft search (which is now integrated with Outlook 2007), but I really like the insights that it provides. What especially caught my eye was the graph that shows when your contacts send emails, the ‘email deficit’ between you and your contact and the ability to quickly find attachments. Can’t wait to try this out. Thanks to Don Dodge for pointing this out.

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nicholas Carr's first book "Does IT Matter" (rightly) raised a ruckus. I hope his new book, "The Big Switch" is as provocative as his first. Early indications are that it is.

From what I can tell, it describes the evolution of IT from in house operations to a utility. Companies that have been leading us up the SaaS path (SalesForce, Google et al) are likely to benefit, while the incumbents need to think hard and come up with a compelling strategy to stay relavent.

Continue reading "Nicholas Carr's new book" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Interesting discussion caused by an article in the WSJ about the decision of ASU's chief technology officer to forgo full testing in an ERP implementation. How did he do that? Well, he just took a page book out of all the Web 2.0 startups and released the software in beta (That's a polite way of saying the product/service is not fully finished/tested.).

So who tests the application? Well, the poor users of course. And this is what has caused a firestorm. There have been cases of employees not getting paid, or in some cases overpaid. The CTO's justification for not fully testing? He's apparently managed to save over half the original $70m estimated price tag and reduced the time taken to bring the application to its users. Very impressive. But is this a strategy that other CIOs should follow?

Continue reading "Is testing for girly-CIOs?" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

When I think of IBM, I think of hardware, software and consulting services - I don't think of it as a lender. Yes, that's exactly what IBM has got approval to do.

" IBM Lender Business Process Services, or LBPS, received clearance to provide mortgage origination services for federally insured Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans.

When it announced the unit’s launch in March, IBM said the unit would fill a void in the lending space, particularly for small and midsize lenders.

The Charlotte-based unit will allow mortgage lenders to replace the fixed costs that are associated with typical loan fulfillment operations with a variable-cost framework. This in turn will free up lenders to provide better service and support to consumers, IBM says.

LBPS will offer a variety of lending services, including loan application, underwriting, processing, vendor management, document preparations, and loan closing."

While this may not seem like a significant announcement, I think there's more here than meets the eye. This is really IBM introducing LaaS (Lending as a Service) to the market.

Continue reading "LaaS for the masses?" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 04:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Interesting blog on the recently held 'CIO Agenda' event centered around Enterprise 2.0. Some titbits:

~"Keeping operations up an running is just table stakes" - Doug Schwinn, CIO, Hasbro

~ Interest level in Vista seems low; interest level in virtualization, open source and Web 2.0 seems high.

~ All the CIOs on the panel predicted an increase in their IT spend.

More here.

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 04:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I first heard about Don Tapscott in 2000 when his book - Digital Capital - was made mandatory reading at my previous company. This was the time when the hype around web services was accelerating and the mantra of the day was 'business webs'. His new book - Wikinomics - is (again) a fairly accurate snapshot of the current business milieu (the Web 2.0 era) and how it affects companies.

If you're already familiar with collaborative software development (e.g. Linux), collaborative editing (e.g. Wikipedia), tagging (e.g. del.icio.us, flickr) and the general Web 2.0 buzz, a lot of this book will be feel like old material. What's was new (and interesting) to me was the application of the principles of openness and collaboration by established companies (e.g. P&G). In fact, the first chapter describes how a struggling mining company (you can't get more old economy than that) turned the tide by using the intellectual power of people outside the company. Don's premise is simple: use the power of your customers, partners, suppliers to co-design, create, market etc. In short, he urges companies to follow an open kimono policy.

Continue reading "Open kimono" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 03:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the book “Does IT Matter?” Nicholas Carr tried to answer this question and in the process dented the hopes (not to mention egos!) of many IT professionals. Here is Gary Hamel’s take on it, as a reminder of what the fuss was about

Continue reading "Welcome to IT matters!" »

Posted by Jim Shand at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)