Status - Advice

On firing your IT consultant

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:11:44 -0700

Smallbiztechnology.com suggests you do just that unless they can answer three questions:

What books have you recently read?

What industry conferences have they been to?

What tech industry relationships (and certifications) do they have?

Those questions aren't bad in and of themselves; you should satisfy yourself as to the qualifications of any contractor you hire. The justification presented for asking them, however, is terrible and exposes the number one unquestioned assumption both among these so-called "consultants" and many of the businesses they cater to. The assumption is exposed in one concise sentence in the post:

SMB Nation East took place this weekend in New Jersey and one of the big lessons learned at the 3 day event, of which I attended Friday, was the differentiation between those IT consultants who still are "only" able to fix your computers when things go wrong, but not able to provide strategic insight to help you grow your business.

Where did anyone ever get the idea that in something as complex and dynamic as information technology, the same person who is well-qualified to fix your technical problems would also be even remotely qualified to provide strategic insight into your business operations? Why would anyone imagine they could get both of those very specialized skills in a one-person package for the low-end rates that most of these people charge? It's like saying your neighborhood EMT should be able to also do heart surgery, and at the same mid-five figure salary he's already getting paid!

I suggest you put some thought first into whether you actually have an IT consultant, or have just hired a technician. Frankly, there's nothing wrong with just hiring a technician, and by default, that is what most small businesses have done... they don't like the price tags on real consultants. Where the problem comes in is when the assumption is made, as above, that your tech janitor should be making (and that you should be listening to) strategy suggestions.

This isn't to disparage those technicians; they simply have a different focus, and different motivations, than real IT consultants. But the motivations make all the difference.

Case in point is item three on the question list: tech industry relationships and certifications. You absolutely want your technician to have certifications these days for the technologies they are working with. But consider what that means for that technician. Unless he has all the certifications, for every technology, then what technology do you think he is going to recommend you use to solve your next business problem? And if, for whatever reason, he didn't suggest the one that was going to get him more business, what basis might he have for doing so without any certification in it?

A consultant doesn't have an investment in your choice of a given technology, because they aren't supporting it over the long run. This leaves them free to make strategic recommendations unencumbered with concerns over future revenue. Their goal can be exclusive to finding the best solution to meet your particular challenges.

If they can't do that, by all means, fire them. And ask more than three questions; you're paying top dollar, make sure you're getting the best. But don't expect them to come fix your printer. And don't expect your technician to provide you with top-flight strategic advice, and don't fire him if he doesn't give it to you. It was your mistake asking in the first place, not his in answering. If you need strategic insight to help grow your business, go find someone who is an expert in providing such advice, not someone who worked hard to get their Microsoft certification papers. An MCSE is an accomplishment, but hardly one that indicates a deep understanding of the broad panoply of technology options facing the modern business.

Efficiency and Competition

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:44:25 -0700

So, I read this morning that new startups are starting up with fewer and fewer staff over time. Apart from the implications that this might have for job growth in our already shaky economy, it also suggests that, just perhaps, the much-vaunted efficiency of technology in business operations is finally being realized.

The advantages of technology were posited long ago, in the sixties and seventies as big business began to invest in information technology with the goal of making their operations more efficient. It didn't. Throughout the eighties and nineties, studies of the relationship between technology investment and productivity failed to show any significant improvements in efficiency associated with technology. Only in the late nineties and the early part of this century have researchers began to uncover subtle gains in efficiencies coming from IT investment.

With those early failures to improve efficiency came a sort of solace to those who had worried that new, hyper-efficient computers would result in massive unemployment, as us poor, pokey old human beings couldn't keep up and would necessarily be kicked out on the streets by our heartless corporate masters. Computers were everywhere, but job growth still boomed, fueled in no small part by the failures of the computers themselves... the support burden of keeping IT systems up and running was no small factor in its failure to introduce real productivity improvements.

But, as it does, technology has evolved, and IT systems today are faster, more stable, and easier to use than ever. As they start to fulfill their original promise, it looks like the original threat, that jobs would disappear, may also be starting to emerge.

This isn't great for the national economy or job-seekers, of course, but for the small business owner or IT manager, it has another set of threats. It means that your competitors are figuring out how to use IT to run a more lean operation, and if you want to stay in the game, you are going to have to do so as well. Years of cruising along with the blanket understanding that IT was difficult, expensive, and ultimately dysfunctional have led to a sort of complacency with the status quo that may now be fatal to small businesses. Technology that breaks, costs inordinate amounts, or does not actually improve your business processes in the ways that it should, can no longer be tolerated. The excuses are disappearing... it's time to make technology, make good.

Is it time to ditch Exchange for Google Apps?

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:35:20 -0700

This is the question posed on Small Business Technology last week. To be fair, the actual question is both a statement and a question: "Google Apps (Cheaper and More Features): Is it time to stop using MSFT Exchange?"

As with most such questions posed without any articulation of the desired end-state of the arrangement, there's no one right answer, of course. But the initial assumptions are a little worrisome and I would suggest if you pose the question while holding them, you're almost certainly going to come up with the wrong answer.

Does Google Apps have more features? On a bullet-point list, obviously, yes; you have a spreadsheet, word processor, and collaboration site together with Gmail and Google Calendar software, so it's as if you got Exchange plus Microsoft Office together. Sort of. Because if you actually break down each of those products and compare it to the opposite feature by feature, you'd find that in fact, Microsoft offers a lot more features. And between Exchange/Outlook and Gmail, an awful lot more. Features are, in fact, the one big reason to stay with Exchange for most companies, because Gmail doesn't yet come close to implementing many of the business and collaboration features Exchange offers. Mind you, I am not suggesting that bundles of features are necessarily a plus; that's another unquestioned assumption from the original. But both are wrong.

Next, is it really cheaper? The original article compares the $60 a month the author pays for Exchange hosting with the $50 a year Apps charges. I don't dispute either of those numbers, but I will say you're getting taken for a ride if you are paying $60 a month for a single user Exchange host. Ten dollars a month is closer to the market rates. While that is still twice as expensive as the $5 a month that Apps breaks down to (both rates being per user), it's not nearly as expensive as the comparison being made... and in some cases, well worth it for those extra features Exchange offers that Apps does not.

On the whole, I am an Apps fan, because I actually believe that most of the features offered by Exchange and Outlook are under-utilized and rarely worth the money. But I don't think it's an option that should be ignored based on erroneous assumptions.

Blackberry Enterprise Server Express: Just Say No

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:45:32 -0700

So you have certainly heard of Blackberry, the evil, addictive, original wireless e-mail device crafted by those cunning Canadians at Research In Motion. You may even have one yourself, but if you are small business-person, then most likely you are using it entirely apart from any Microsoft Exchange Server that your organization may have (unless, wisely, you have outsourced your Exchange Server services to a large hosting company like, say, MyHosting.com) because until recently, the Blackberry Enterprise server software necessary for integrated wireless sync directly from Exchange was prohibitively expensive and difficult to manage for small IT shops.

Someone at RIM must have noticed this, because they have recently begun offering a version of Enterprise Server, called Enterprise Server Express, for free to small organizations, with reduced license fees for users. That takes care of the prohibitively expensive part; unfortunately, no one thought to address the "difficult to manage" problem.

We had the tremendous displeasure recently of having a client who decided to take advantage of this offer and asked us to help install the server software and get their devices configured. Thus began a twelve-hour odyssey, half of which was spent on the phone with RIM support, which ultimately proved unsuccessful, and exorbitantly expensive for the client despite the software having been "free."

The installation process is complex, unnecessarily so for the small business environment (and perhaps, I suspect, even for larger businesses, although those will certainly have the internal resources to cope), and poorly understood even by RIM's support staff, who passed us back and forth with misdiagnosed issues time after time.

Ultimately, they weren't able to figure it out before our fees got to be more than the whole thing was worth to the client. They are still using the desktop sync capability; we recommended outsourcing Exchange hosting or moving to next-generation phones that will work with Exchange out of the box, like Android, iPhone, or Windows Mobile devices.

Blackberry represents a not uncommon story in information technology, a revolutionary device that breaks all previous boundaries on its release, which then rides its success right into the ground. For other examples, see Novell, VisiCalc, or AOL. You can still find these things around in pockets, with loyal adherents who will use them till death do them part, but for the most part they took the market by storm, failed to adapt, and dwindled. Not infrequently, once it becomes obvious that they have been lapped, these companies offer products which once would have commanded premium prices to customers outside the core market at a ridiculous discount. However, it's a gimmick; the value isn't in the price but the capabilities, but if the capabilities have been outmoded, then any price is excessive.

And that's the case with Blackberry Enterprise Server Express. There are newer solutions, less costly, easier to implement, with more functionality. Don't let the cachet of days past influence your decisions.

Why overly simplistic analysis is bad for business

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:57:03 -0700

Phil Wainewright writes today on why the freemium model is bad for business. Phil's blog tracks Software as a Service so as you can imagine he sees quite a few vendors for whom freemium is an integral part of their model. The term, in case you aren't familiar with it, describes the process of structuring offerings with services that are primarily free, but which offer extra features or upgraded levels of service for customers who choose to pay for them.

This is a risky approach for vendors, requiring a fine sense of what is and is not of value in one's product line, but it has proven popular in the market and can be a means of honing in on exactly the thing that users are willing to pay for. Presenting an exact value proposition represents an extremely accurate way to establish pricing and focus in on the parts of customer service that really matter.

Wainewright makes his arguments from the customer perspective, though, generally focusing on the truism that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If you aren't willing to pay for service, he argues, how can you expect it? He points out the poor track record of success for freemium services over the past decade, and questions why you would want to rely on them in the future.

Wainewright's charges are all true, of course, but they over-simplify the decision-making process you should use when selecting any service for your business that you will rely upon. The key isn't whether or not you pay; any small business owner who has been around more than a year or so can tell stories about getting burned by vendors to whom they have paid very good money. Similarly, most will have stories of free services they use which have been solid and indispensable, be they ever so simple.

The real key isn't to focus on whether or not you are paying, but on where the vendor is getting paid. That is the secret to determining their motivation, and knowing their motivation is essential to establishing an alignment of your interests with theirs.

Classically, businesses make money by providing good, well-priced services to customers who feel they get their money's worth and will return for more and make referrals. There's nothing wrong with that model and it still works pretty well in many situations. But it's not the only working model out there. There are businesses that make money today by over-pricing and providing shoddy utter crap, and there are those that make money by giving things away and providing excellent products.

The reasons behind this are all about where the next dollar is coming from. The company that has no reason, even if it provides excellent service, to expect that you will ever send them another dime or refer anyone to them, probably isn't going to focus on making you happy. They want to cash your check and move on; their margins come from finding the next sucker.

A freemium-driven business, on the other hand, frequently has every incentive to provide good service... once they get you in, even as a free customer, you represent that next dollar because it comes from upselling the next level of service to you. The free was to get you in the door. The real sale doesn't happen until the company converts you somehow. While it's true that a lot of freemium-based companies have failed, so have plenty that decided they should charge up-front.

There is also the possibility that the freemium vendor is getting what they want simply by your presence; Google is a good example of this: they make their money from advertising. Your eyeballs are a necessary part of that, but your wallet isn't. They have every incentive to keep you coming back to their services and viewing their ads, even if you never give them a dime.

Don't mistake anecdotal examples of poor planning or execution for a problem with the model itself. The right things to look at are whether or not the vendor is capable of providing the service you want, and whether or not they can make money at it... whether the money is coming out of your pocket or not.

Are you small?

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:50:58 -0700

We usually define our market as the small-to-medium business (SMB) and this blog is mostly read by people at companies that put themselves in that category, but what, exactly, does that mean? What's the purpose of putting a business into such a category, and how does anyone decide what is, and isn't, an SMB?

Spurred by a post on the SMB Research Blog on the topic, a brisk discussion of the topic from the Information Technology perspective broke out on a LinkedIn group I follow this week.

What's the fuss, you wonder? Who cares what an SMB is or isn't? Everyone uses Windows, whether they're General Electric or Bob's Corner Market.

That much may be true but there are a lot of solutions out on the market that are specifically oriented, or at least claim to be, toward businesses of a certain size. It becomes difficult to evaluate these if you aren't using the same yardstick as the manufacturer, or if your assumptions about what an SMB is or isn't don't line up.

It developed from the LinkedIn discussion that most people in IT base their definition off either the total headcount of the organization or the number of PCs the company has. Some go by revenue, and some use governmental definitions (noted in the SMB Research post linked above).

Our take is that all of these approaches are misguided. Particularly today, with IT providing immense leverage in an increasing number of markets, the headcount, revenue, or number of computers a company has provides little insight into its IT requirements.

We prefer to look at the level of information processing the firm performs for guidance toward the level of solution they might look at to handle automation of those tasks. The technology itself can affect both revenue and headcount, increasing the one while decreasing the other and throwing off those traditional metrics anyway. As far as the number of PCs, the power of modern machines can drastically reduce those numbers as well, even as processing capabilities increase. In short, the level of sophistication a business might successfully make use of has little to do with any of those metrics. What ultimately matters is process complexity and the level of potential those processes have for being addressed by technology automation.

Anyone who tries to lump you into a product range or category based on anything else, tell them to take a hike.

That good old false sense of security

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:21:23 -0700

It's a big fuzzy warm blanket against the bitter cold snap we've been having here in the Pacific Northwest... the false sense of security, I mean. We think we're insulated from the freezing temperatures outside, and we look out at the pedestrians stumping along shivering, and few of us realize how close we are to being them with one small failure somewhere in the systems that keep us cozy.

Information systems are a lot like that, too, as this recent survey from Symantec illustrates. Of course Symantec, a major provider of anti-virus and backup software, has good reason to trumpet these results, but they are not out of line with my own observations about most SMBs... few realize how poor their disaster plans are, or what the likely effects are if they suffer a disaster without improving upon them.

The biggest gap in perception versus reality is what the effects on business will be in the wake of a disaster. Few companies bother to test their planning, if they have any, rationalizing that their customers are loyal and will understand any blips in services, at least long enough to restore things to their nominal levels. More than once I have had disaster recovery planning recommendations shrugged off with a dismissive, "We did fine before we had computers doing this, we'll get by without them." While that's certainly true, at least in potentia, it doesn't reflect the reality that automating systems changes how they work from how they worked before they were automated, and that many SMBs, particularly, don't adequately work out and document how a system works in a non-automated fashion in the first place, instead simply throwing technology and work-arounds at things until they work, then leaving good enough alone. That gets you through the day; it doesn't allow you to roll back to a manual process very easily, or necessarily at all.

The survey data pretty much demolishes that idea. With downtime exceeding eight hours in nearly half of all cases, and average daily losses approaching an average of $15,000, it doesn't take long before problems add up to more than the cost of developing a disaster recovery plan ahead of time. Disaster, in fact, is probably the wrong word, convincing SMBs that these problems are rare and unpredictable. In fact, as Symantec finds, most "disasters" are more pedestrian and far more common; the average respondent suffered three outages of varying degrees of severity in the previous three months. Good disaster recovery planning can help just as much with an accidently unplugged server as with a city-wide power outage.

Chrome OS and the SMB

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:14:00 -0700

Unless you have been hiding under a rock these past few days you have probably already heard much about Google's new operating system, Chrome OS, due for release on dedicated hardware devices sometime next year. I just read an article claiming it could be ten years before enterprise customers adopt the platform; what about the small-to-midsized business? Does it make sense for them? Will adoption be faster?

I think it's probably premature to speculate on the adoption rates of a specific operating system which has not yet even gone into beta. It's important to note that this isn't simply an operating system, and certainly not one that works in the popular sense of the term: it's a mechanism for Google to increase adoption of its existing online services. The company has long been disappointed with the platform represented by modern web browsers, which are neither robust, nor secure, nor fast enough for SaaS applications to realize their full potential. The modern web browser has evolved from designs that were intended to provide very basic capabilities to display static HTML markup and not much else. The fancy, desktop-like things that modern websites achieve use a hodge-podge of technologies that have been slapped into these simplistic frames in a sort of balancing act that is not always successful. Other browser makers don't have the same economic incentive to offer browser software that is better suited to modern web applications. Absent those efforts, Google has created its own, because the more competitively web applications compare with their desktop counterparts, the better off the company will be.

The thing is, web applications adoption in the SMB market is already going wild. Two-thirds of small businesses already use SaaS in some way, shape, or form. A recent Microsoft report [DOC] forecasts an 20% growth rate in that number this year. And if Microsoft is saying it, you can probably believe it, and perhaps even imagine that it's under-reported, because it's not good news for them. If it were, you'd be hearing about an upcoming release of "Internet Explorer OS" instead.

So the real question isn't whether or not SMBs will adopt Chrome OS, but whether they will seek to improve the performance of the cloud-based applications and services that they are already flocking to in droves. And I think that's an easy answer; whether by moving to Chrome, the web browser, Chrome OS, or some as yet unannounced third option that also effectively improves the security and performance of those applications, businesses will certainly seek a better, faster, more secure user experience when working with applications they have already adopted. The whole history of Information Technology has rested on this premise as a driving force: people want faster, better performance. Whether it is Chrome OS or not, someone will bring it to them and they'll eat it up.

Desktops in the cloud

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:21:09 -0700

I was thinking this was pretty much off the radar for most SMBs so far, but Smallbiztechnology.com ruined that assumption with a recent post "Should Your Computer Desktop Be 100% Cloud Based?"

The idea has been around for a while, as long as virtualization, and is not far removed from the Terminal Services desktop hosting that many of our clients make considerable use of already. A single server computer is powerful enough to run the desktop and programs for many users simultaneously; this concept itself is a throw-back to the timesharing arrangements used on many early (and expensive) mainframe computers. The cycle has come around once again to make this the most efficient way of using computing power, and the ever-increasing speeds of the Internet are making it practical for even small businesses to use.

Using a hosted desktop provider goes a step further, though. Instead of connecting to a server hosted by the business itself, users connect to a server that is basically rented from another company, one that specializes in running such servers. This takes the level of efficiency one step higher, and renders the overall costs that much lower. Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?

Although I am generally bullish on cloud services, I'm not recommending this step to most people just yet. I have set up certain clients on cloud hosted desktops, but even in those cases we've made use of a dedicated server that we have configured ourselves for the purpose. The reason is that none of the currently available desktop hosts are quite large enough, stable enough, or have the model down to my satisfaction just yet. I have no doubt some are on their way, and certainly some will get there at some point, but I don't see the need to stretch for something that isn't perfect just yet. The desktop, after all, is something that is already available to almost every user on their own machine. Netbooks and other such limited-use devices are not yet prevalent enough to worry about the immediate access of basic desktop storage and application services becoming a problem. As far as portability, there are plenty of alternatives for abstracting applications across desktops... SaaS applications, online storage services, and the like handle all the equivalent functionality of a cloud-based desktop, without any of the clunkiness. Indeed, I wonder if remotely hosted desktops aren't sort of an intermediate kludge on the way to a newer and more useful paradigm, something done for comfort and because people can't quite wrap their heads around the more interesting alternatives yet... just as fake horse-heads were sometimes slapped on the front of early automobiles to make people more comfortable with them.

Fragile support model validated by Gartner

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:03:31 -0700

Of course, we are so off the global radar here at IMS that I can't claim they stole it; in any event the idea is pretty self-evident once you start looking at the trends and crunching the numbers. But our clients can now rest assured (some of them who have been extremely nervous at the prospect, particularly) that the concept of Fragile Support that we have been pushing on them with varying degrees of aggression for the past couple of years has finally found some favor at major enterprise research firm Gartner. In a presentation at Gartner's 2009 IT Symposium in Orlando the company makes a case for shifting IT procurement and support for laptops and smartphone devices out to the end user and simply paying a stipend to staff, who are already more inclined to bypass the IT department for such personal equipment anyway.

This approach amounts to a sort of IT judo, where the weight and inertia of a more or less inevitable trend is used against itself to get the IT department of a business that it doesn't like and isn't very good at, and allow it to focus resources on core systems that it must support and that it stands a good chance of improving with additional focus. At the same time, it allows budgets to be slashed, sometimes dramatically, presenting a win/win scenario for the forward-thinking CIO.

Many CIO and IT managers resist such a change both out of resistance to such a radical departure from supposed best practice IT strategies and out of a fear of having their authority questioned and their dominions shrunk. But those things are inevitable, and the best way to avoid them is to pre-empt them by making the suggestions yourself. If your department is going to shrink anyway, do you want some say in how and why it happens, or do you want to wait until the day when someone has to come in and tell you to do it?

Pushing you off of XP

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:22:00 -0700

The upcoming release of Windows 7 is putting many business users, particularly small business users, in a bit of a fix. Microsoft has already phased out Windows XP, which most businesses are still running, but in a wink-wink acknowledgment of the general consensus that its replacement, Windows Vista, was a tremendous dog, the company has made it possible for vendors to continue distributing XP licenses and support with very little practical disruption from the alleged retirement of XP.

My suspicion has been that this relatively happy state of affairs could not last, and that its demise might well coincide with the official general release of Windows 7, Vista's much better-groomed and behaved successor. My reading of this TechFlash article reinforces that suspicion.

The article reports on a recent marketing effort by Microsoft to woo customers away from XP and toward 7. I imagine that with the carrot that Microsoft is holding out in terms of improved performance (over Vista) and other accommodations (Windows XP mode... because why run it directly when you can pay more and run it virtually?) there will also be a stick, probably in the form of increased pressure on vendors and partners to drop XP support in favor of 7.

This is the part that puts users in a fix... because on the whole, most of them are better off financially sticking with XP than with upgrading, even those with volume licensing who already technically have the right to install 7. As TechFlash reports, it's a hard sell for Microsoft... but when Microsoft has to make a hard sell, they can be downright brutal. The least of it are the lies and disinformation, although that seems to be what they are leading with.

"What we're really doing is saying, 'Hey, you own it. Deploy it, and get off of XP. Move on," said Gavriella Schuster, a Windows general manager, in an interview last week. "Throughout Vista what a lot of customers did is they brought new hardware into their environment and then they standardized back to XP. It's like, don't do that! Run a heterogenous environment for a bit, until you get everybody on 7, but you're going to save money when you get everybody to 7, so try to get there as soon as you can."

You absolutely don't own it, even if you have paid for it; one paragraph over the above gem they link to a warning from analyst firm "Directions on Microsoft" warning that Windows licensing has remained difficult to comprehend and hard to comply with in the face of technological innovation and changing market conditions. Of course, you didn't own XP, either; but, if possible, you own Windows 7 even less due to increasing built-in controls and additional restrictions in the agreement.

There is another separate hell reserved for people who recommend running heterogenous environments but I'll leave that for another post.

But the idea that most people are going to save money by transitioning their entire organization to 7 doesn't jibe with any of the actual calculations I have done for a number of clients who are asking that very question. While this is a small sample and a self-selected one at that, I think it is representative of where the average small business is at today. In each case, the business could save up to half as much simply by stocking up on machines or licenses with downgrade rights and continuing to make use of them to provide for new users or broken systems for the next three years or so. Were they to upgrade to 7 instead, they would pay twice as much, disrupt staff to an extent which would add measurably to training and soft productivity costs, and still end up running just about everything in XP mode... which I can't figure out why Microsoft keeps touting so much, if 7 is such a clear winner in terms of performance and efficiency?

This smacks of desperation on Microsoft's part, and I can't help but read that quote from GM Schuster in a slightly shrill voice. While business people aren't always the swiftest on the technology uptake, most of them are continuing to run XP at the behest of their technology advisers, and if it isn't self-evident or at least easily explicable to those people why they should recommend upgrades, then maybe there is something wrong with the product. In this case, of course, it's not so much that there is anything wrong with 7; I'll probably standardize on it at home and have no problem starting off new clients who need Windows on that platform. But it's not so tremendously advanced from what most other clients are already running that it is worth the investment. I think the reality check needs to happen on Microsoft's end. When Apple can put out an incremental, but dramatically more efficient version of it's OS X operating system in roughly the same amount of time as it took to develop 7, and offer it for $30 as an upgrade, I think it's a sign that the OS market as built up by Microsoft is due for a significant shift.

The big-budget mega-feature upgrades of years past are either done, extended over much greater periods of time, or destined to fail, as Vista did. We may simply be entering an age where incremental improvements are the best thing for most operating systems. With more and more features moving to what Dion Hinchcliffe is calling the WebOS, the various services and information sources comprising the modern Web, the importance of rich and featureful desktop operating systems is coming into question anyway. Speed, efficiency, and the ability to get the heck out of the user's way are the things my clients are looking for on their desktops these days... three areas that Microsoft products have been notoriously weak in.

There may be hope, however. Always nimble, Microsoft has a history of getting back out in front of trends (although the extent to which founder Bill Gates was responsible for that agility and how well current CEO Steve Ballmer might replicate it are questions still unanswered), and anyone looking at their new Bing search engine can see that there is someone over in Redmond still who values clean, simple, and functional systems. Whether or not that person can be drafted into the Windows division and have any sway there remains to be seen.

Recycling in place

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:57:00 -0700

Green IT is one of the new industry buzzwords that has come along with a recession, an environmentally-minded president, and an increasing awareness that "green" is economical. More efficient allocation in resources leads to a better bottom line. Virtualization is making such allocation increasingly easier for businesses of all sizes to adopt. At the same time, recycling options for old hardware are expanding, and the necessity of procuring new hardware is diminishing, or at least extending out on a longer timeline.

There is an interesting article on MIT's Technology Review today about a project which has used the lightweight OS code base developed for the XO laptop to run older desktop PCs with better performance than would be possible for "modern" operating systems such as OS X or Windows.

A lot of people forget that the catch phrase for the green movement is just "Recycle"... it's actually "Reduce, Re-use, Recycle" and it's intended to be interpreted in that order. Start off using less, make better use of what you do have, and only then, if neither of those actions are applicable, should you actually recycle equipment.

Many organizations are locked into patterns of reliance on the latest and greatest operating systems, although the functionality of those systems is arguably equivalent to older software in many situations (even on the newest and fastest hardware). These organizations have bought into the industry-approved upgrade cycle and don't see the use for older hardware that can't run their standard software.

The thing is, though, much of that standard software can be run in some way, even using older hardware, if one can reconsider how and where it is being run and look at it from a strictly functional perspective.

The answer, of course, is to use a terminal services environment, with a single powerful server handling the heavy lifting of software operation, and the older machines as dumb terminals. This isn't perceived as practical for many organizations because they still insist on maintaining smart client operating systems on those desktops, even when their primary use is as terminals. From a certain perspective, this makes sense; if you are a Windows shop, and you want centralized management, then you reduce your costs by maintaining a single Windows version across your platforms. It's nonsensical, however, when those platforms are simply used to access web or terminal services; client management is only a serious issue when expensive and complex clients need to be maintained for desktop operations. A cheap dumb terminal is fire and forget: drop it in place, run it into the ground, replace it with another if it fries. There is nothing to get infected, stolen, or corrupted... what difference does client management make?

My old favorite for re-purposing older machines into dumb terminals was the PXES Universal Linux thin client boot disk. I see that the project has since gone mainstream, however, and has non-competes with other providers; they are now recommending a project called cult, which looks similar but which I haven't had a chance to try out yet. Cult, PXES, or similar open-source thin-client distributions allow old hardware to be repurposed as a terminal client as easily as popping a CDROM in the drive and turning on the power.

The old machine can be configured to boot directly to an RDP based terminal session; the user logs in and runs everything without even knowing the difference between the Windows login they have just made and the conventional, but more expensive, thick-client version they are already used to. In most cases, the boot time is faster than anything possible with a modern smart-client PC, even running on the oldest hardware. What a deal... use old hardware, improve performance and your user experience at the same time!

Of course, if you are willing to look at web-based alternatives to your Windows applications, it gets even easier. There's no need to set up a Terminal Server when someone else has already procured and configured the servers for you (as have all SaaS providers). In those cases, a lightweight, specialized distribution such as xPUD, Xubuntu, or Damn Small Linux can either be installed to an old, small hard drive, or booted just like cult from a CD or USB stick, putting the user at a rudimentary desktop with web access in a matter of seconds. All the heavy lifting other operating systems do is unnecessary when all your processing is happening on the other end of an Internet connection. Firefox is a safe, stable browser to run on a lightweight, impenetrable, disposable Linux platform to access those services. When Google finally releases Chrome for Linux, a browser specially built for running web-based applications, the case will be even easier to make.

So hold off on your trip to the local recycling facility; slide a fresh CD into the drive and simply recycle your machines in place.

What is all this tethering business, anyway?

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:41:41 -0700

Whether you are an iPhone user or not you have probably been unable to miss all the press coverage associated with the recent release of the new and improved 3GS model. Among the many new features Apple has promised with the roll-out of the upgraded device is a technique called "tethering" which it seems has only received much attention from tech bloggers and hardcore nerds. But it's a valuable technique for anyone thinking about mobile computing options and the addition of this as a supported feature to the iPhone (various hacks have allowed uber-nerds to achieve this state of computing Nerdvana for quite some time now) isn't something that the average user should overlook.

Tethering, briefly, is a means of tying your laptop computer (either via a cable or a short-range Bluetooth connection) to your phone and allow the computer to make use of the phone's internet connection. This can allow pretty decent mobile access to carrier internet services anywhere that there is cell coverage, which frequently exceeds areas where other mobile broadband access such as WiFi or WiMax can cover.... without the additional expense of extra plans and devices such as the cell cards that many carriers offer for the same service. If you're already carting your phone and your computer around, what do you want or need another device for?

Tethering is actually diminished in importance by the iPhone, since its built-in web browsing capabilities are light years ahead of other mobile devices, and reduce the impetus to use a more powerful device in its place. But the popularity of the iPhone is bringing the debate out into the open and that provides a good opportunity for education and exploration of the technique among those who are new to the concept.

Even with an iPhone, tethering brings benefits. The screen size and lack of a full keyboard are always going to be limitations to touch typists and anyone performing tasks which require screen real estate; if you are one of those people, then those things don't stop being valuable to you just because you happen to be outside the office. If you are already carrying around a broadband enabled mobile device, then there shouldn't be anything stopping you from making use of it for more than just checking e-mail and the weather.

I've been using a tethere RAZR for a few years now in lieu of picking up a more spendy and less reliable ClearWire subscription, or paying for a dedicated cell modem for my laptop. At first, this was at least in part because there wasn't anyone making cell modems that would even work with my Mac laptop, whereas the hacks necessary to enable the RAZR as a tethered device were straightforward. Later, I came to appreciate the ability to have a connection anywhere my phone and laptop happened to be, whether on the road, out at sea, or (don't tell the FCC) on a plane... all without paying extra for a dedicated data plan, and without having to keep track of a separate card for the computer.

The 3G network run by AT&T is faster than what I started out with, but it's notoriously crammed with data at this point, and that may be one of the reasons the company has been reluctant to allow tethering... more powerful computers can put greater demands on the network than the relatively limited phones. The rumors are that the company will charge extra to allow tethering, although the technical capability is inherent in the devices, simply to reduce demand.

Even with that limitation, the option may be worth exploring. The fact that it will be introduced as a supported service, legitimized by their charges for it, will make it much easier for the average user to set up, and the freedom allowed by the technique is another strong move forward in mobile computing.

Microsoft preparing to roll out free anti-virus software

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:40:05 -0700

It's out in beta, but I haven't looked at it yet. I would imagine it's not too different from the Live OneCare suite that it replaces, although stripped down a bit and without the subscription fee; if you'd asked me six months ago what I thought Live OneCare needed, I would have said, "It needs to be stripped down a bit and have no subscription fee" so obviously I'm happy about this move.

And it was really an obvious move for Microsoft to make; the real surprise is why they didn't do so sooner. One thing that the company and its Windows operating system are hammered by competitors over is the virus problem. Perhaps afraid of the anti-trust implications, Microsoft has long counted on third-party vendors to handle creation and maintenance of the anti-virus technology that is necessary to run Windows, but most of those vendors have taken the opportunity to build bloatware "security center" type software which has everything in it but the kitchen sink and introduces performance problems.

Microsoft has been faced with an unpalatable choice under this system; allow PCs to become over-run with viruses and take a PR hit for it, or encourage the use of software that cripples Windows and get a reputation for turning out slow software--users don't distinguish between the OS vendor and the background software they run.

The clear thing to do is to put out an anti-virus package that only does anti-virus, does it well enough to eliminate the threat, and doesn't consume huge amounts of system resources in the process. It's the best thing for Windows... perhaps under attack on all fronts, Microsoft has decided to shelve the anti-trust issues and do what it should do for the benefit of both users and the market.

I recommend a serious, hard look at this alternative when it comes out. Norton and McAfee, the big dogs in the anti-virus world, have both been off my list for a long time now, but they remain the choice of most SMBs for protection. They are bad choices, though, and all the cards are in place for this product to be much better on all fronts. Microsoft has some serious skin in this game.

Outlook with Gmail just got easier

nospam@example.com (Scott Wilson) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:39:21 -0700

Google announced yesterday the release of Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, allowing users of Google Apps Premier or Education editions to use Outlook as a rich e-mail client with Gmail as the back end mail server. E-mail, calendar, and contacts are all synchronized between the systems, which together with the free/busy lookup and Global Address List integration are among the most commonly used features in the Exchange/Outlook partnership.

Google is taking a chisel to that long-successful system by introducing this level of integration at a far lower price point, and with a new migration tool to ease the import of Exchange data into the Gmail system. Many organizations have found themselves on Exchange almost by default; packaged with Small Business Server, or simply the only fully featured mail server for the Microsoft platform they were aware of, Exchange has been the only obvious option.

But running on-premises mail is expensive, and Exchange tends to generate more problems per user than almost any other server software, driving higher support costs. Google Apps has offered a much cheaper alternative, but companies have had difficulties envisioning the transition, and Google is doing the smart thing by making it easier for them. Microsoft found its own initial success in the server market by making it similarly easy to transition from Novell.