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- How Accenture Riled Siebel
- Could You Be Banged Up for Wireless 'Piggybacking'?
- Opportunitistic Break-up Call from Borland Shareholder
- Is Oracle's Multicore Licensing a Smokescreen?
- Something For the Weekend, Sir?
- So Long: Borland's Dale Fuller
- NASA Sued Over Deep Impact
- Comet to NASA: "Ouch!"
- You Wait Ages for a Bus...
Jason Stamper's Blog: July 2005 Archives
How Accenture Riled Siebel
July 28, 2005
Accenture accidentally unleashed The Wrath of Siebel yesterday, by publishing a piece of research that found that poor customer service is the top reason for customers to switch service providers, and that "new technologies alone fail to improve customer service".
Neil Morgan, VP of Marketing EMEA for Siebel spat: "There is nothing new about publishing market research to prop up a quiet summer news season and there's certainly nothing new about this research. To say this is pointing out the obvious is an understatement." To which Accenture is believed to have replied: "miaow!"
But according to Morgan, "The customer service industry recognised long ago that it takes the right combination of three elements to make the customer service experience successful - people, process and technology. Only the successful application of all three together will deliver what people desire."
Considering all of the hard lessons that have had to be learned thanks to the countless failed customer service technology implementations, Morgan's comments are also perhaps a case of stating the obvious. Or as Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut put it: "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."
Could You Be Banged Up for Wireless 'Piggybacking'?
July 25, 2005
The case last week of a UK man who was found guilty of piggybacking on other people's wireless local area networks (WLANs) - so-called 'war driving' - has raised the question: could you fall foul of the law by accidentally connecting to a nearby unsecured wireless network?
The police were alerted after a man was noticed loitering outside a building in a residential area with his laptop, apparently trying to gain access to other people's broadband wireless networks. A jury at Isleworth court in London found Gregory Straszkiewicz, 24, guilty of dishonestly obtaining an electronic communications service and possessing equipment for fraudulent use of a communications service - namely his laptop.
Many of us who connect to a home wireless network will be familiar with the fact that before you log on to your wireless network, you are often offered a list of available networks within range and asked which you would like to connect to. If people have given their wireless networks specific names, like 'BobNet55' or whatever, it is clear which is yours and which is not. Likewise if only one is unsecured, that is probably yours (assuming you haven't secured your own, which you should).
But most wireless routers come configured with a generic name, like 'Linksys', which is the router manufacturer's name. If people have for whatever reason left their network name as 'Linksys' - because they have not got around to it yet, never read the manual in the first place, or just can't be bothered - there may be two or more networks called Linksys within range of your laptop, and you may not know which is your own. Neither might be secured.
So if you connect to the wrong 'Linksys', or accidentally connect to 'BobNet55', are you guilty of an offence and liable to a fine or even jail? It seems highly unlikely. Straszkiewicz was found guilty under sections 125 and 126 of the Communications Act 2003. Section 125 of that Act states that you are guilty of an offence if you:
(a) dishonestly obtain an electronic communications service, and
(b) do so with intent to avoid payment of a charge applicable to the provision of that service
If you are already paying for a wireless broadband connection of your own, it is surely unlikely that you would be found guilty of piggybacking "with intent to avoid payment of a charge applicable to the provision of that service".
Section 126 relates to the possession or supply of equipment for contravening section 125, but owning a wireless laptop or wireless-enabled PC is obviously not an issue unless you've used them to piggyback - again "with intent to avoid payment of a charge applicable to the provision of that service".
However, there are some common sense precautions to take to protect yourself and other wireless users: apart from anything else, you wouldn't want to have to try and prove in court that your connection to someone else's network was purely accidental, nor would you want to share a broadband connection with its rightful owner (apart from anything else, you'll both get slower speeds).
* Change your wireless network name from the generic one it came with - you are less likely to connect to the wrong network, and others are less likely to mistake yours for theirs.
* Turn on secure encryption of your own wireless network - so others cannot accidentally connect to yours.
* If possible set your configuration to automatically connect to your own network and not search through all available networks.
Disclaimer: This article is not to be construed as legal advice. Legal advice must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each case. This information is not intended as legal advice and may not be used as legal advice. It should not be used to replace the advice of your own legal counsel.
Opportunitistic Break-up Call from Borland Shareholder
July 21, 2005
There's always a shareholder who believes he can do a better job than the company's management and board, and they're often right. But former Borland director and long-time shareholder, Robert Coates' calls for Borland to be broken up look little more than opportunistic.
Following the resignation of Borland's CEO Dale Fuller under the cloud of a profit warning that came on July 7, the company appointed the former COO as interim CEO while it conducts a search for a new chief. Seeing a power vacuum at the top, Coates weighed in by saying he is formulating a plan that he hopes to firm up by mid-August, but which he has already said would include the jettisoning of what he sees as a number of legacy products.
Coates believes that Borland should focus exclusively on its application lifecycle management (ALM) products, which is one of three major lines at Borland. The other product lines include IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) where the company built its reputation, and middleware, which stemmed from the 1998 acquisition of CORBA broker provider Visigenic.
These calls may come as something of a surprise to Borland, however, since the company's own take on ALM, which it calls Software Delivery Optimisation, has indeed been its primary focus for some time. Besides, the whole point of full application lifecycle management is that it takes in the development, deployment and subsequent optimisation of applications, which in fact means that IDEs and middleware form a core component of any real ALM suite.
Coates says focusing exclusively on ALM would enable Borland to compete directly with IBM's Rational software products, but perhaps Coates has missed the fact that IBM has been busily working on tighter and tighter integration between its own Rational ALM products and its Websphere line of development tools and integration software, and Tivoli line of applications tuning and management.
Indeed perhaps Coates missed the fact that IBM acquired Rational's ALM precisely because both IBM and Rational believed ALM tools need to be integrated into a broader integration, development and optimisation portfolio, in order that development teams have a one-stop, integrated platform on which to base their service oriented architecture (SOA) strategies?
If Borland were to jettison its IDE and middleware lines, it would go from having a good selection of SOA products to being a niche modelling vendor. Niche modelling vendors like Rational and Popkin have already been acquired because they found life just a little too niche, and fellow modelling player Telelogic has been rapidly broadening its portfolio in order to avoid the same trap. History does not support the notion that it is best to concentrate exclusively on modelling - even if you choose to call it ALM.
Where Coates may have a point, is in his assertion that the sales force is at times confused by the broad portfolio at Borland, and that that has not helped matters very much. To this end, it would be good to see Borland to try and harmonise the branding of its different products, and thus begin to position them as a set of development, modelling and optimisation tools that really do come together to act as an integrated platform. Specifically, a platform to underpin SOA.
Most of the other vendors have already moved in this direction, and Borland's Software Delivery Optimisation strategy speaks to that goal, but we're yet to see the tight integration between the three major product lines that would really help to crystallise that strategy in the minds of its own sales force and its prospects and even existing customers.
If Borland could effectively harmonise its product branding to clearly match the requirements for a SOA platform, and also bring in the development quality and methodologies expertise from its recent Teraquest Metrics acquisition, it would have a far more compelling proposition for today's enterprise IT department, and certainly a far more compelling proposition than simply focusing on ALM to the exclusion of other vital disciplines.
Is Oracle's Multicore Licensing a Smokescreen?
July 19, 2005
As widely reported, Oracle has announced a new pricing scheme which it says makes it more affordable for customers to run Oracle software on multi-core chips. Or does it?
The issue arises because many software vendors have historically charged customers based on the number of processors their applications run on. But several of the chip manufacturers have started wringing more power from their processors by adding an extra core, instead of simply trying to make the chip faster and faster. IBM started the trend with its dual-core Power4 chips in 2001, and HP and Sun duly followed suit, with AMD and Intel now doing the same with their Opteron and Pentium D processors.
That in turn saw Oracle initially saying that each core is counted like a single processor as far as its licensing is concerned, so running a dual-core chip costs twice as much as a single core chip. Since then it's faced a certain amount of pressure from the chip vendors, who consider that charging double for a dual-core chip could reduce demand for their latest processor architectures, and who point out that other major applications vendors still treat multi-core chips as a single processor.
Seemingly responding to this mounting pressure, Oracle announced a new pricing scheme last week to cover multi-core chips. Each core is now counted as 0.75 of a processor as far as pricing is concerned, with the catch being that the result is rounded up to the nearest whole number. That means that a dual-core processor is charged at 2 x 0.75, which comes to 1.5, which is then rounded up to 2. So a dual-core processor is still charged the same as having two physical processors.
Admittedly, the maths start to offer customers a discount when you move up into the area of 4 or 6 cores on a processor, whereupon the scheme does see considerable discounts on Oracle's previous pricing policy. For instance a 4-core processor is charged the equivalent of 3 processors, and a 6-core processor is charged the equivalent of 5 individual processors.
But with dual-core processors likely to be the most common for at least the next few years, and Oracle's new pricing strategy still charging customers the same for a dual-core chip as if they had two separate processors, the question remains whether Oracle is really keeping up with the times. Just as importantly, will Oracle look expensive compared to the rival applications vendors who will continue to charge per chip, and not per core? We shall have to wait and see.
Something For the Weekend, Sir?
July 15, 2005
We could do with a bit of cheering up in London right now. So with great pleasure I leave you before the start of the weekend with a paragraph from Andrew Marr's book on the history of British journalism, which I have only just started, but that has had me in fits of laughter already:
"At the opening of the eighties, there was the beginning of a rush to the City but journalism was the favoured option of would-be intellectuals too dim or greedy to stay in academia. One of the early stars of my time returned a year after leaving to interview me about a rebellion then going on in the Cambridge English faculty, and which Panorama, to which he was 'attached', thought might be interesting for a short film. He arrived at the pub we had arranged to meet in wearing a trench coat. If he didn't actually have a trilby with a paste card reading 'press' stuck in one side of it, the effect was the same. We'd known each other slightly - well enough to be on Christian-name terms. 'Robert Harris - BBC - Panorama,' he said, holding out his hand without a flicker of a smile. 'Hi, Robert,' I replied. I thought he was a complete prick. Then I thought, almost instantaneously, and that's exactly the kind of complete prick I want to be, too." - Andrew Marr, My Trade
So Long: Borland's Dale Fuller
July 14, 2005
In what must have been one of his last interviews before he resigned under the cloud of a profit warning, Borland's CEO Dale Fuller gave some insight into the turn of events to come when I caught up with him around two weeks before he left his post.
On July 7 application development tools and methodologies player Borland issued a profit warning, saying it now expects quarterly revenue in the region of $65m to $67m, and a much wider than expected net loss of between 24 to 26 cents per share. The company had previously issued guidance of $70 to $73m revenue and a loss of 19 to 21 cents per share. Without even issuing a separate press release, the company announced also that Dale Fuller was stepping down from the CEO post but staying on for the time being as a director.
Speaking to me on a rare UK visit two weeks earlier, Fuller gave little hint that he was about to lose his CEO position.
Prior to being headhunted to lead Borland, Fuller by his own admission was lounging by his pool considering his options, even a rather early retirement. Asked whether, now that he has pretty much turned Borland around since he was made CEO in 1999 (give or take the recent profit warning) he may be ready to return to the poolside, Fuller replied: "I still love what I am doing. As long as the board want me to keep doing what I am doing then I will stay doing it."
But he did give some veiled forewarning of the imminent sales miss: "We are now more reliant on very large deals - last quarter we had eight multi-million dollar deals," he said. While it is good to have multi-million dollar deals, they also mean that one or two deals being pushed out to the next quarter or not closing at all can have a serious impact on the company's quarterly results.
He continued: "The sales organisation needs to be better at managing those big deals," before adding that, "IT spending is still very precarious. We think it's still at 2002-2003 levels. Seasonality is moving from being something that effects the third and fourth quarter to something that effects the second, third and fourth quarter."
His plan though was to "be profitable, and keep doing what we are doing. We're not going to throw things to the wind. Are we executing? Yes. We're not going to change drastically. I have no doubt as long as we keep doing what we are doing we will be successful."
In another ominous statement regarding the impact of Sarbanes Oxley on US companies, Fuller said: "One of the impacts has been that research has shown that the rate of CEOs leaving their posts is now 300% higher than it was before Sarbanes - there's so much more pressure on the CEO today."
Fuller will continue on Borland's board of directors for the time being. The company named Scott Arnold, chief operating officer, as an interim CEO until a permanent replacement is found.
Fuller must be some given credit for growing Borland consistently year after year. Before he joined, the former CEO had changed the company name to Inprise, doing away with years of trusted mind share Borland held among the developer community. The company was also somewhat stalled, and its strategy of targeting senior IT managers instead of developers - without having very much to sell to them - was a mistake. Fuller put the house in order, changed the name back to Borland, and refocused on its core competencies.
He's not got everything right, however. The company's proposed merger with Corel announced in February 2000, on the premise that the two would create a 'Linux powerhouse' looked ludicrous from the outset. As Corel's stock plummeted the merger was abandoned in May of that year, perhaps a lucky escape for both Fuller and Borland. There was also a who-ha over the company's 'open sourcing' of the Interbase database. Despite allegedly being open source, external developers were not able to contribute, prompting a group of enthusiasts to start the Firebird project at SourceForge instead, and harming Borland's open source credentials.
But since joining Fuller has consistently grown sales on an annual basis, with total sales for 2004 up at $310m and net income at $11.4m. Back in fiscal 1999 sales came to just $175m. His most recent strategy, centred on the concept of 'Software Delivery Optimization' looks to have been well executed so far (again, apart from the most recent sales miss).
To enable that vision Borland acquired TeraQuest Metrics in January this year, and in so doing took charge of Bill Curtis and Charlie Webber, co-authors of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) that is the basis for many of today’s software development best practices, including Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute’s stringent Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). A shrewd acquisition, and one that may well pay dividends in future quarters.
It's not known how long Fuller intends to act as a director, or whether he will only hold that post until a permanent CEO can be found. But despite the recent troubles with Borland's quarterly results, if he were judged on his performance since he was made CEO, Fuller would still have a pretty enviable track record.
NASA Sued Over Deep Impact
July 08, 2005
Regarding NASA's 'Deep Impact' washing machine missile strike at a comet: When I asked in my blog the day before yesterday, "Can [NASA] be certain that their actions might not trigger some kind of devastating chain reaction?" I was joking.
When I said: "Might a shallow atmosphere around the comet be somehow disturbed by the pyrotechnics as the washing machine struck? Might the little green men who quite possibly live inside the big cheese be cowering under their little green beds or behind their little green sofas? And what about that theory that a butterfly flaps its wings in London and a few days later there is a tornado in Milton Keynes? Surely NASA has heard of the butterfly effect?" I thought it was pretty clear I wasn't being serious.
However someone took my comments at face value - a Russian astrologer is suing NASA for $300m for smashing the comet's orbit. "It is obvious that elements of the comet's orbit, and correspondingly the ephemeris, will change after the explosion, which interferes with my astrology work and distorts my horoscope," Marina Bai told the Russian newspaper, Izvetia.
Quite how a missile the size of a washing machine could seriously mess with the orbit of a comet half the size of Manhattan is not entirely clear. But then it's not entirely clear what the study of bits of rock hurtling through space several million miles away has to do with people's state of mind or future, either.
Comet to NASA: "Ouch!"
July 05, 2005
Does no-one else feel a tiny bit squeamish about NASA firing a 23,000mph missile the size of a washing machine at a comet 83 million miles away?
They say there's no harm done - that it's a bit like a fly hitting a car windscreen, since the comet is about half the size of Manhattan. But still, the whole point of the exercise is that the scientists know next to nothing about comets. They didn't even know whether the surface of the comet would be hard, or soft just like a big cheese. So can they be certain that their actions might not trigger some kind of devastating chain reaction?
Might a shallow atmosphere around the comet be somehow disturbed by the pyrotechnics as the washing machine struck? Might the little green men who quite possibly live inside the big cheese be cowering under their little green beds or behind their little green sofas? And what about the theory that a butterfly flaps its wings in Chicago and a few days later there is a tornado in Milton Keynes? Surely NASA has heard of the butterfly effect?
OK, so it's pretty unlikely that firing a washing machine at a chunk of rock half the size of Manhattan would do that much damage. It seems the surface of the comet was hard after all, and after a few plumes of debris the comet's carrying on its own little journey to who-knows-where. Perhaps it's a good job the missile did explode on landing, and not just sink into a big cheese. Because otherwise, there might just have been a gaggle of little green men standing around wondering how to put their little green shirts in the washing machine on a short-spin woollens cycle.
You Wait Ages for a Bus...
July 01, 2005
First there was the Mule open source enterprise service bus (ESB) project, hosted by Codehaus. That's on version 1.1 already. Then the ObjectWeb Consortium announced an open source ESB project, called Celtix, sponsored by Iona and hoped to be ready by the fourth quarter. Next Sun announces it will launch an open source ESB of its own even before Celtix. Then on Friday, PolarLake announced a program that sees it giving away its ESB for free during the third quarter to IBM customers wanting to try the technology alongside their existing IBM products. As they say, you wait ages for a bus then they all come at once.
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