Reality Check | Ephraim Schwartz
May 15, 2008
Dissecting the AT&T memo on the iPhone limit of one to a customer
By making a few assumptions here and there let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on behind the scenes at AT&T and Apple as it concerns their iPhone strategy. The internal memo, shown on the AppleInsider site says that customers may onlly purchase one iPhone at AT&T stores. The prior limit of three iPhones is no longer in effect." In addition the memo states that effective immediately "customers may only use credit or debit cards to purchase their iPhone. Cash or Check will no longer be ac-cepted!" What does all this mean? The most obvious answer is that... more
TAGS: None
May 13, 2008
IT benefits from big vendors' slow on-demand plays
I won't exactly eat the words I wrote when I said the spate of BI acquisitions a several months back meant boutique vendors were on their way out, leaving IT with far fewer choices in the future. Instead, due to the fast maturing SaaS side of the software industry, I will amend those words, somewhat drastically. To refresh your memory, the accelerated pace of acquistions such as SAP's purchase of Business Objects, IBM's Cognos play, and Oracle's buyout of Hyperion led me to believe point solutions were fast becoming an endangered species. Now, I have to agree with Josh Greenbaum,... more
TAGS: SaaS
May 12, 2008
Laws to allow hands-free use of cell phones while driving will increase accidents
After watching a driver blithely drive down the wrong way on a one-way street while said driver was also talking on the phone, leads me to believe people aren’t as multifunctional as they would like to believe. So it is with grim terror that I report San Francisco just passed a law requiring hands-free use of mobile devices for drivers. Terror because this law will do nothing to curb the abuse of talking on the phone while driving, the main culprit behind accidents involving cell phone use in cars, and will in fact encourage fools to keep on talking while... more
TAGS: None
May 06, 2008
Outsourcing: Breaking up is hard to do
A few months back, I blogged about getting more value from your outsourcing strategy: Rather than sign a single $1 billion-plus deal, break your services up. Smaller deals, focused on smaller projects or services, may be the new way to go, I conjectured. After all, outsourcing everything to a single vendor and making a long-term commitment -- often as long as 10 years -- can lead to problems down the road, especially when it comes to business process innovation. I concluded, with the help of Peter Lowes, principal at Deloitte Consulting and leader of Deloitte's Outsourcing Advisory, that breaking a... more
TAGS: Outsourcing
April 29, 2008
Meeting demand in the on-demand era
Everything is in place, the ducks are lining up nicely. We have the great generational change from humans raised in an analog world and artificially inseminated with a digital gene to real live humans naturally born and bred into the digital age. Out of this comes an entirely new approach to how these digital beings analyze their surroundings, solve problems, and conduct business. And finally, we have the technology, both in terms of major shifts like Web 2.0 but also in the nuts and bolts like IBMs first server product line designed to work the way Web 2.0 works, moving... more
TAGS: Web 2.0
April 22, 2008
India to trap outsourcers in tax net
Events unfolding in New Delhi could have far-reaching repercussions, as the Indian parliament deliberates changes to its tax code that could deeply affect businesses here in the States. Whereas some believe the pending legislation is "business-neutral," one specialist I spoke with said that the proposed changes could cost American businesses with Indian subsidiaries or Indian outsourcing initiatives a significant amount of money. [ For more on recent trends in outsourcing and offshoring, see The ins and outs of outsourcing and offshoring ] Don Jones, partner at BDO Seidman, an accounting and advisory firm, sees the potential changes as part of... more
TAGS: Outsourcing
April 17, 2008
You get no bread with one meatball...
The little man felt ill at ease, He said some bread sir, if you please. The waiter's voice roared thru the hall, You get no bread with one meatball. So the song by Ry Cooder goes as it talks about what you can't have. Well this song came to mind today when dealing with Comcast, God bless'em. My service went down again, this time it wasn't my VoIP or broadband for the Internet but my On Demand service. For a few days I have been unable to access any on demand shows or movies. No access of any kind.... more
TAGS: None
April 15, 2008
Salesforce and Google ally -- for now
Hamlet: Act I, Scene V Ghost Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, -- O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power So to seduce! -- won to his shameful lust The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen: O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there! I'm not sure who will be the queen and who will be the ghost as an outcome of the "global strategic alliance" between Google and Salesforce announced this week, but I do predict there will be one of each. "O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!" says... more
TAGS: Cloud computing, Google, Outsourcing, SaaS, Web 2.0
April 08, 2008
SaaS favors Google over Salesforce
To say that strategy and technology are finally becoming interlinked in business is pure BS. It has always been thus. I'm certain that when the first cash-register salesman convinced the first general-store owner to buy a cash register, the sale went through because he was able to convince the owner that this new technology would improve the general store's bottom line. SaaS as strategy Even when companies bought and failed to successfully deploy technologies for technology sake in the late '80s and early '90s, you'd have to say they were well-intentioned. By that I mean, no company decided to spend... more
TAGS: Google, IT strategy, Outsourcing, SaaS, Web 2.0
April 07, 2008
Swallowing Yahoo may make Microsoft want to take a nap
If Microsoft succeeds in buying Yahoo for $40 something billion I got to wondering how long will it take Microsoft to achieve ROI on the acquisition? Well, last year Yahoo's gross profit was a bit over $4 billion. If revenue and profits continue at that rate in a mere 10 years Microsoft will have made back its money, not profited mind you but broke even. Okay, I'm not naïve, that's not why Microsoft wants Yahoo. Then why do they want them? Believe it or not the idea of market share did not die with the bursting of the Internet bubble.... more
TAGS: None
April 02, 2008
ISO approves OOXML as standard
Are you also known by the company you don’t keep? Here is a list of the countries either disapproving or abstaining on the vote to accept or reject the Microsoft OOXML file format as a standard. This is how it breaks down according to the story posted on the InfoWorld Web site. "Of the 87 countries that voted, 61 approved, 10 disapproved and 16 abstained. Among the P-members, 24 approved, eight disapproved and nine abstained, ac-cording to the document." For the complete list see the story. For the story on what OOXML is all about read the InfoWorld feature on... more
TAGS: None
April 01, 2008
Maintaining integrity on the Net
Call it what you want, it [the Internet] is all about ratings now. We can argue that what makes a blog important is the nature of the content, but who are we kidding? We hide what we really mean by calling it "page views," "impressions," "unique visitors," "click-throughs," "time spent on site," but it is all the same. From now on, I'm just going to lump it all together and call it ratings. If you don't think everyone on the Web, including me, is obsessed with getting good ratings, take a look at this Reality Check headline which I wrote... more
TAGS: Blogs and blogging
March 28, 2008
Microsoft caves, in part, to online computing
There’s nothing more satisfying than an intelligent observation about life or business that communicates a real truth. So it is with great pleasure that the following observation... "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win," attributed to Mahatma Gandi is also true about high tech vendors and how they react to upstart competition. Here’s today’s headline, actually an email I received this morning, Friday, March 28, from Microsoft public relations. "I want to let you know that Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s on-demand service, previously referred to as "CRM Live," will be launched under... more
TAGS: None
March 27, 2008
Eyewitness to H-1B scammers
In a series of blogs earlier this month I wrote about how the H-1B visa program is being gamed by outsourcing companies. If you recall I noted some statistics that said, 8 out of the top ten companies that win the H-1B visa lottery are not U.S. firms that say they need to bring in foreign nationals on an H-1B to complete a project. Rather most of the H-1B visas are awarded to Indian outsourcing companies. A couple of weeks later I wrote about how these companies don’t even keep their employees who have the H-1B visa in the States.... more
TAGS: None
March 26, 2008
Social networking hits the bar scene big screen
Consider: just about everybody now carries a cell phone in their pocket, belt clip or pocketbook. Add to it the fact that monitors, big screens and small, are popping up everywhere. Mix with that the phenomenon of social networking where people would rather talk to each other anonymously--see the movie Denise Hangs Up-- than in person, and you have the makings for some innovative business concepts. Enter Sanjay Manandhar who realized there was a cool way to create a business out of the intersection of all these trends. What Manandhar created was Aerva, a technology and a company that allows... more
TAGS: None
March 25, 2008
Is the slow economy hurting high-tech sales?
As the economy continues to dive, are we witnessing the first ripples in a revolt against consumerism and the spending attitude that typically says, "Damn the interest and full speed ahead with the credit card spending"? Signs of change Two events indicate that such change is on the way. First, Sirf Technology Holdings, a GPS (Global Positioning System) chipmaker announced today it is laying off 7 percent of its workforce due to an expected downturn in first-quarter revenue. The company outlook went from revenue of $71 million to $77 million to $60 million to $62 million. According to the Wall... more
TAGS: None
March 25, 2008
Take the smarts out of smartphones
Last week's IBM-Sprint Nextel announcement left me dazed and confused. According to the announcement, the Lotus Expeditor software platform will be adopted by Sprint Nextel, which in turn will provide mobile application developers with a beta version of a "new" software platform named Titan, which can be downloaded on most Windows Mobile 6 smartphones from Sprint. But I'm sure that is all perfectly clear to readers more technically savvy than I. Not to pick on IBM or Sprint, but I'm just about up to here (edge of hand tapping Adam's apple) with yet another, as Bob Egan, principal analyst at... more
TAGS: Mobile devices
March 24, 2008
U.S. Immigration [USCIS] changes selection process for H-1B visas
An interesting development in the H-1B lottery this year that you may not know about. As you may know the number of applications for an H-1B visa far exceeds the cap by the first submission day, April 1. The cap is currently 65,000 H-1B visas plus 20,000 for foreign citizens with a graduate degree from a U.S. university. However, up until this year the USCIS [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] policy was to have a random drawing from the day’s receipts that are needed to meet the cap. Typically, this meant that the USCIS used two days’ worth of H-1B... more
TAGS: None
March 18, 2008
Will the iPhone force Apple to change course?
If you say your product is "enterprise-ready" within earshot of anybody who works for InfoWorld, you'd better be able to prove it. So when Apple claims "IT professionals" will be able to seamlessly integrate the iPhone into their enterprise environments, a great many questions need to be answered. [ For more on the iPhone in business, see "IT's guide to the iPhone." ] The fact is, Apple, at least up until now, has focused on delivering well-designed products that are basically self-service. Let's start with that premise. The problem as I see it is this: Apple has been, in essence,... more
TAGS: Mobile devices
March 17, 2008
H-1B bill would stop use of visa for third party consultants
As reported in InfoWorld last Friday, Representative Gabrielle Giffords,[D-Arizona], introduced an immigration bill,[HR 5630]The Innovation Employment Act that would raise the cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 130,000 next year, and set aside the cap completely for foreign graduate students attending U.S. colleges studying science, technology and other related fields. The bill, if it became law, would increase the cap to 180,000 from 2010 to 2015. "Section 214(g)(1)(A)(vii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(g)(1)(A)(vii)) is amended to read as follows: '(vii) 130,000 in fiscal year 2008 and each succeeding fiscal year, except that in fiscal... more
TAGS: None
