The VoIPWiki Blog reports that Skype’s protocols have been reverse-engineered by at least one company, creating an opportunity for eBay (and Skype) to expand its industry leadership if it reacts appropriately. As of this moment, my Skype client reports 5,927,530 users online (that number varies continuously). It has perceived industry leadership (users and name recognition) already. But it is closed – and others, like Google and Microsoft, are pushing to turn this whole technology segment (PC to PC, PC to phone and phone to PC communications) into a commodity that’s a default part of what everyone does.

What would you do if you were in Meg Whitman’s shoes (eBay bought Skype in October, 2005 for $2.6 billion)? Is there any real value in keeping Skype’s protocols closed? If Skype opens them up, how does it deal with implementation-induced quality issues?

Let me know...

2 Comments | Submit a Comment | Permalink

Between the recent announcement by Bill Gates that he would step down from his key role as chief architect at Microsoft to focus on the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and Warren Buffet's announcement that he would donate $30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, we are seeing a new breed of philanthropy unheard of in my lifetime.

Given the close relationship between Bill and Warren, I would be surprised if Warren's thinking didn't influence Bill's — and Bill's didn't influence Warren's either.

We should take a moment to show a sign of deep respect for both the Gateses and the Buffets. They could have become modern Kubla Kahns (see Samuel Coleridge's poem by the same name), building palaces and other human ephemera. Instead, they are taking their hard-fought winnings at the game of life and investing it to give life back to those who need the help most.

Bravo!

4 Comments | Submit a Comment | Permalink

How much tape does it take to back up 90 quadrillion bytes? Are your PCs becoming fungible?

I started Gartner’s Network Computing service 10 years ago. We wrote about the opportunities and issues associated with moving from a client/server model (or terminal/server model) to one based on fungible clients and Internet- (technology) based servers. That research spawned a lot of other research, such as our work on global class (instead of enterprise class) computing, Web services, software as a service and so forth. It’s starting to feel like 1996 all over again.

Among other things, the Googleplex is Google’s collection of Web servers. The New York Times reports that Google is running 450,000 servers (those may be twin-core processors) in the Googleplex. If each has a 200-gigabyte hard drive, the Googleplex features 90 quadrillion bytes of online storage. No doubt, those numbers will continue to grow exponentially. Meanwhile, Good Morning Silicon Valley opines that, with 900 million PC users worldwide, the Googleplex supports about 2,000 users per Google server. If we assume the average user spends no more than 2.4 hours online daily, that’s 200 semi-active users per server — a number that, all things considered, is about what we used to run on high-end PDP-11s and early VAXes 25 to 30 years ago. More to the point, with the amount of hardware, storage and fiber-optic networks involved, the Googleplex is feeling more and more like the giant (distributed) mainframe in the sky.

Judging from the popularity (and penetration) of portals in enterprises today, it feels like most IT shops are moving more to server-centered models for computing. Whoever wanted those darn PCs anyhow? Oh, yeah, the users! But the emergence of the Googleplex (and Microsoft’s and Yahoo’s plans to build their own transglobal data centers) suggests that users are going to be enjoying more and more services from the “network cloud” – and caring less and less about their own systems.

Finally, note that if the 450,000 servers each have 200 gigabytes of storage, that works out to 90 quadrillion (9 followed by 16 zeros) bytes of online storage. And that’s today…

Are you ready for a shift back to “network computing”?

1 Comment | Submit a Comment | Permalink

Google Labs recently released a beta version of Google Browser Synch for Firefox. It is described as “an extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.” Google provides more information at its FAQ and blog sites. You can find a reasonable brief on its use here.

Some people are (and most people will, in the next several years) using many different machines, day and night, at home, at work and while traveling, sometimes more than one at a time. They will not want to worry about moving personal content and context (including business content and context) between these devices (nor will they want to worry about which version of what software may be installed). They want it to be transparent. They want to be liberated from device and license jail. Google and others are taking steps to make that happen.

There’s a lot of discussion in some of the blogs about Google Browser Synch for Firefox (see lifehacker, Slashdot and Fortune/Business2.0, for example) but most of it is detailed comments about this specific beta offering.

There’s something bigger happening here. Person-centered information services will supersede device centric models. The devices themselves will remain important – but less important than they are today.

In the long term, this model will overtake today's approach. Get ahead of this – look at it an opportunity. Don’t lay down on the railroad tracks trying to stop the train.

What do you think about this – and, more importantly, when do you think you’re going to have to proactively deal with this?

6 Comments | Submit a Comment | Permalink

Will Antitrust Concerns Stifle Innovation and Usability? Will Adobe Sue Microsoft Over PDF Support in Office 2007?

The Wall Street Journal (2 June 2006) reports that Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said in an interview that Microsoft expects Adobe to follow through with a threat to file an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in Europe. Apparently, Adobe feels that by offering (at no extra charge) a “save as PDF” feature in Office 2007, Microsoft would be unfairly exploiting its market position and unfairly injuring Adobe and other competitors.

“Save as PDF” is a step toward greater openness (of benefit to users and the broader industry), improved ease of use for end users and faster innovation (as more players jump into a more open environment).

It would be a tragedy if, in the name of antitrust issues, any governmental or quasi-governmental entity were to stifle that progress. Let’s hope that the parties can come to agreement in a way that maximizes innovation while not rewarding inappropriate behavior. That’s a tough order. But forcing Microsoft to drop PDF save features in the name of reducing its monopolistic practices doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.

I’m not, of course, privy to the negotiations between the players. But it strikes me that an ongoing royalty stream from Microsoft to Adobe for these features might have been the most expeditious way to handle this. Then again, it isn’t my money to give away.

What do you think?

8 Comments | Submit a Comment | Permalink

The deep value of business intelligence (BI) lies in enabling nonroutine activities that produce major long-term changes in competitive position (see "Business Intelligence Focus Shifts From Tactical to Strategic").

When you really think about it, BI has two major elements: information delivery – such as a reporting dashboard or scorecards (which management needs to find problems and maximize efficiency), and information exploration – such as data mining, analytics and visualization (which knowledge workers need to deliver their unique added value). BI is a critical capability that’s moving from an elite cadre of quantitative experts to the broader range of employees who need to find new opportunities and threats and come up with creative alternatives.

BI practitioners and CIOs should start looking at Gartner’s High Performance Workplace research to figure out how best to exploit the exploring and the worker/people dimension of business intelligence.

What do you think?

1 Comment | Submit a Comment | Permalink

In an Associated Press story reported on CNN, Harris Interactive polled office workers to measure how important personal Web surfing was to them. It found that employees would rather give up their morning coffee than forgo the ability to surf online at work.

Respondents reported that, on average, 3.1 at-work hours per week were spent on personal Web surfing (and 12.8 hours were spent on work-related surfing).

This is just another component of blurring boundaries between business and work that we have been discussing for some time. In your environment, do you see the same thing? Does management encourage or discourage this? Why?

3 Comments | Submit a Comment | Permalink

When talking with customers about implementing better HPW technology, analysts often go on and on about the importance of governance and managing the people and political elements. I saw an excellent real-world example of how this can go wrong last week that illustrates the point better than any PowerPoint slide I could come up with.

I was sitting in the stands in an empty stadium enjoying a bit of sun during a break at a seminar being held in an adjoining conference center. Two cleaning crews were working their way through the stadium, picking up trash from last night's match. The crew on the lower deck was picking up trash and stuffing it into plastic bags. The crew on the upper deck had better technology: leaf blowers that they used to blow the trash into the aisles, where it was easier to pick up. However, the crew with the leaf blowers was working above where the lower crew had already cleaned. I watched as they blew trash all over the areas that had already been cleared.

This might look like a common sense problem, but it is the kind of thing we see all the time as analysts. Introduction of new technology (such as a portal, content management system, workflow or collaboration tools) without changing working practices or thinking how the technology affects how people work destroys most of the benefits the better technology could bring. The crew with the leaf blowers was actually decreasing the overall efficiency of the organization; take away the better technology, and the job would be done faster. Or (even better) change everyone's work practices to incorporate changes needed by the new technology. Substitute the leaf blowers with an enterprise portal or middleware tool, and you could get the same effect.

2 Comments | Submit a Comment | Permalink

Some would argue that free lending libraries funded by cities are stupid. And, the booksellers will add, those libraries cut into sales they'd otherwise have. I disagree.

I see free citywide WiFi as the Internet-era equivalent of brick-and-mortar libraries. Sure, they have some (small) impact on commercial alternatives, but they won't be as good as leading-edge (and expensive) alternatives.

As a society, we need to provide "free highways" and “for-fee highways.” Nothing wrong with that, is there?

8 Comments | Submit a Comment | Permalink

One question Gartner analysts often get asked is – do you use your own advice? In this case the answer is yes. Since doing some research on larger displays, I have added to my own system. I use a second 15” LCD display alongside my laptop to create a single virtual workspace. My company-issued laptop has built-in support for this but there are now add-on solutions such as the Matrox DualHead2Go. I also have a 19’’ display attached to a separate desktop PC which is swiveled into portrait mode. This is particularly valuable (e.g. the whole Wall Street Journal front page at a glace without scrolling). The next problem is making the workspace more seamless across two PCs. For that I found an impressive open source utility called Synergy which shares the mouse, keyboard and clipboard across two or more machines - even if they are running different operating systems. Of course what this all means is that I’m pursuing a major trend Gartner calls the consumerization of IT (read Gartner's Position on How to Exploit Consumer IT's Advantages, 2006").

Current innovation in increasing productivity through multiple displays seems to be end-user driven. Some people, for example day traders, are pushing to 6 or 8 screens. An interesting discussion of ideas and issues appears here.

These cobbled-together arrangements are 80% functional but inelegant and ergonomically imperfect. I’m sure that in a few years time we’ll all be using displays better designed to do the job we want them to do, something that looks more like this, probably.

1 Comment | Submit a Comment | Permalink

The New York Times recently published an article on the virtues of using two screens instead of one. Improved productivity at a relatively low cost is the primary benefit. This echoes work we have been doing for years. See, for example, Martin Reynolds’ recent piece “Multiscreen Systems Can Drive Productivity Gains” . Earlier work by Mark Raskino on large-scale displays ("Bigger and Better Displays Will Boost Productivity at Last") also looks at the productivity benefits of large displays. In my discussions with clients planning new facilities, I stress the need to consider the option of providing very large displays (dropping 30 percent per year in price), multiple displays or both, because the benefits far outweigh the costs.

But what are you planning on? And what’s your experience?

Submit a Comment | Permalink

In the final session, Tom Austin noted that one often noted problem IT professionals have is how to expose people inside their enterprise to all this technology. One solution: hold an annual company-wide, internal conference (as at least one US company does) to expose people to this new tech...and don't invite vendors.

Submit a Comment | Permalink

Thanks for making the PPC Summit such a great success! We look forward to seeing you next year, March 19 - 21 at the Gaylord Palms, Orlando, FL. And tell your European colleagues to join for the PCC Summit in London, October 2-3.

Submit a Comment | Permalink

...to Jeremy Lockler, of Grand Circle Travel, winner of the 37-inch flat screen television.

Submit a Comment | Permalink

During the presentation of “Measuring Your Organization’s “Attitude” and Managing Around its Implied Weaknesses,” Tom Austin and Tom Eid analyzed the results regarding management styles and areas of investment.

Directors vs. leaders: Not surpringly, these two constituencies showed markedly different investment approaches. Leaders are more inclined to spend and build to meet business needs, while directors try to use off the shelf solutions and contain costs whenever possible.

Survey data indicated that portals and web content management continue to be the leading areas of investment. Coming up on the investment horizon during the next three years: information retrieval and enterprise search.

Submit a Comment | Permalink

A frequent issue posed by attendees is how to make the organization flexible enough to adapt to increasing demands for change. Changing an org structure is one thing, but getting people who don't know each other to work together effectively is another thing entirely.

When you're asked to work with people on a project, what kind of respsoniveness should you expect of them? What are their areas of expertise? What's the preferred way for ad hoc teams to collaborate together? Email? IM?

Gartner analyst Mark Gilbert noted that modest investment in certain knowledge management applications -- such as Expertise Location Management -- can go a long way towards addressing some of these issues.

Submit a Comment | Permalink

As we get into the final day of the conference, keep these points in mind:

• Checkout at the hotel is 12pm



• Shuttles to McCarran Airport leave every two hours from 5am to 1pm



• Make sure you fill out your Summit survey before you leave.



• Take time to ask analysts any remaining questions you have.

Submit a Comment | Permalink

It's worth getting up early tomorrow to make Breakfast with the Analysts, one of your last chances to ask any questions face to face. The breakfast is at 7:30am in the Valencia Room.

Submit a Comment | Permalink

A number of interesting questions were asked in my session earlier today:

Telecom Convergence – the impact of Unified Communications on Collaboration

Here are a few:

1. Are there real UC products available today?

Yes. But there are several different architectures and approaches. First its important to understand that Unified communications is made up through the convergence of existing products/markets. These markets are: IP-PBX, Unified Messaging, Email, Conferencing (audio, web, video), and IM/Presence. So there are already products doing these things. Some UC solutions will integrate but leave in place existing solutions, while others will be replacing some or all of these functions.

Leading vendors mentioned in the presentation included (in this order) Siemens, Nortel, Microsoft, Alcatel, Avaya, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, and others. Some of these solutions are fully released.


2) Why aren’t we seeing large deployments of UC products?

Some parts are large, but fully functional solutions are still early stage and haven’t been deployed on a large scale. It is fairly safe to target <3,000 users. Larger deployments should be checked. Also depending on the component some individual components scale much larger, like Unified Messaging and converged conferencing have deployments at over 50K+ subscribers.

Also UC must fit into a Portal Strategy, I am discussing Mobile Portals in a session on Wednesday morning, again this is a new area. While there are mobile portals deployed, this is also an area that is evolving rapidly.


3) Will PBXs be replaced?

Yes, by IP-PBXs eventually. But if the IP-PBX is not open to being extended and and integrated with applications, then it may be a dead end and will also need to be replaced. So be careful when selecting an IP-PBX to ensure that it is standards based and can be integrated with other UC functions. look for things like SIP and proxy servers. Also there is no need to replace a PBX unless you find things that it can’t do or if you are at end of life on it. You don’t need to rush to replace the PBX, wait until you have the need.


4) How does one reduce the risk of social disruption when introducing unified communications solutions?

A good way is to pilot social change with the new technology. Then have the people involved in the pilot talk to others before the pilot is expanded. Also as part of the pilot new communication norms should be trialed, like ways to be considerate and to respect others need for privacy. Then this can part of what is discussed as the pilot is expanded.

Submit a Comment | Permalink

Airport shuttles will be available tomorrow at 5 a.m., 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 11 a.m., and 1 p.m. Ticket are available at the conceirge desk, and reservations at least two hours in advance are recommended.

Submit a Comment | Permalink