The IT Beacon

Tech Sector Review: Chrome, Worms and Word

Internet Explorer available in Chrome?
Google is on the verge of making its Wave emailing platform available publicly in preview form. From what I have seen it is highly impressive. Coupled with that, Google has developed an Internet Explorer plug-in that turn’s Microsoft’s browser into Google’s Chrome browser. How clever is that? Probably more to the point, Google recognizes that IE dominates and for Google Wave to work it needs a browser that is more technically advanced than IE. Hence the helping hand from Google.

Twitter can give you worms
Hackers are using Twitter to harvest user login details, knowing that people often use the same login details for different accounts, including their online banks. This is impressive given there are only 140 characters to play with. Basically the user receives a message from a compromised account that directs them to a video clip, which in turn encourages the victim to submit their account details into a Twitter-like login page.

Word Up
The jury is in as Microsoft defends its Word processor against a claim that it infringes a patent, (relating to document formatting technology) belonging to Toronto based i4i (ominous!). The legalities commenced in 2007. In August a US judge banned Microsoft from selling Word in the US. In early September Microsoft was granted a stay of execution. Microsoft is facing a $290m fine and a possible reengineering of Word.  The court case has deeper implications on the future of open document standards. This is important to both Microsoft and the market, but for differing reasons.

Tech Sector Review: Twitter and Malvertising

Micro-blogging Macro-funding
Despite the fact that Twitter has yet to earn any significant revenues it is likely to secure a $1bn valuation as a result of the $100m it recently raised in new funding. This is impressive even by dotcom madness standards. The real-time nature of it certainly has appeal. And no doubt hearing what celebrities and wannabe celebrities have for breakfast is an emerging trend. My concern for the high-kill low interpersonal skill video game generation is that having 140 characters in which to express themselves may in fact be too overwhelming.

Beware of malvertisments
Microsoft has taken steps to address the growing trend of malvertising, whereby individuals use pay per click adverts to distribute malware. Microsoft has filed five suits against individuals who are alleged to have used its advertising service to post malicious software or redirect curious clickers through to rogue website. Addressing this is critical for Microsoft as it tries to position its Bing search engine/advertising platform as a serious alternative to Google’s more established offering.

Tech Sector Review: Dell and Oracle

Dell Services
PC maker Dell has made a bid for IT services firm Perot Systems valuing it at almost $4bn. This seems a natural part of the IT industry end game; manufacturers buying their entry tickets into the service industry. Perot Systems was founded by Ross Perot founder of the mighty EDS. Perot Systems never quite made it into the EDS league. However it gives Dell a leg up into the healthcare industry. Some of Dell’s PC customer may struggle to make the link between Dell and service.

Oracle keen to close
Software giant Oracle is keen to close the deal on acquiring Sun Microsystems. Founder Larry Ellison is growing impatient with the European Competition Commission claiming they are dragging their heels in reaching a conclusion. His argument is that the US authorities have already waved this through. Add to that the fact that Sun’s revenues dropped by a third in the most recent quarter. Plus the owner of the MySQL database is allegedly hemorrhaging $100m per month. Thus it would appear Mr. Ellison has a point. That said there is a genuine concern around what Oracle will do with MySQL, which is a rival product to its flagship database. Possibly the ECC will bless the deal on the proviso that Oracle sells Sun’s open source database business.

In the C-Suite: Waiting for Google

In my FT column I recently wrote a piece on how some of the major online players are plummeting to new depths in respect of customer service.

Click here to read my FT piece.

What do you think?

e-Skills: Fit for culture

Traditional IT talent acquisition focuses primarily on the person being fit for purpose. Do they have experience of Oracle 10G? Have they worked in equity derivatives? With that approach you can distil IT recruitment down to buzzword matching, hence the development of online recruitment.

But what about cultural fit? Putting an aggressive candidate into a collegiate organisation will cause friction and an erosion of the talent investment.  As will the converse.

This is often overlooked. Few recruitment consultants meet with the real customer (within the IT function). Typically they deal with the talent procurement function (within HR). Or worse still they work through an outsourced recruitment function that liases with an internal recruitment function that liases with the IT function.

Similarly there is typically very little contact between the recruitment agency and the candidate.

This presents an opportunity for recruiters that move beyond selling purely on fitness for purpose. The associated time investment is significant, but the rewards are high.

e-Skills: Beyond Buzzword Bingo – The buy-side

A week or so ago I wrote a piece on the need for IT recruiters to move beyond buzzword matching. This prompted a flurry of response (one email) pointing out that those recruiters on the buy-side in particular need to raise their game.

I am in full agreement. Internal recruiters that do no more than collect buzzwords from the IT department are in effect adding no value to the recruitment process. In a world where value for money is the focus of attention, we all need to be delivering real value if we want to remain relevant (and employed).

Eventually the real buyers will get fed up and recruit directly. The role of HR will be purely administrative. This is an evolving issue that HR directors (and CIOs) need to consider.

CIO: Be less agile

There is some talk in the market about the agile approach to system development. Agile focuses on business engineering rather than system engineering and is user rather than technologist focused. All good stuff.

The fact that agile is also used to describe businesses has helped make the approach more relevant. The talk in the market is that the agile approach has come of age, which would be about right if it was human given that it has been around in a semi formalised / pubescent manner for just over twenty years.

My concern is that agile is seen as the cure to all system development evils. Whilst it certainly addresses many important issues, including speed of development and meeting the user’s requirements, it has some notable weaknesses. Specifically:

• The emphasis on ignoring system engineering encourages the development of unsecure and unscalable systems
• It is premised on the fact that the customer (user) is always right. This of course is not always the case. Most users have no interest in how the system needs to integrate with the middle and back office systems
• Agile projects never ‘get closure’. Whilst this is not necessarily a bad thing, it makes it difficult for the IT function to conclude on a project and it makes for a contractual nightmare from a vendor’s perspective
• The short fuse delivery schedule of agile projects is not dissimilar to doing your ‘finals’ every month. Agile projects are an efficient way to burn out technologists.
• Complex high-risk projects do not lend themselves to short fuse delivery. Nor do they work well when the testing has been rushed.

I don’t want to spoil the party, but we need to be aware that the agile approach has its limitations.

Click here for more CIO posts.

e-Skills: Beyond Buzzword Bingo

In a candidate-rich market IT talent sourcing is often distilled down to what one might call buzzword bingo; the game being to reconcile the buzzwords on the candidate resume with those on the job spec.

A problem arises when the talent pool dries up and the war for technology talent heats up.  Recruiters can no longer play buzzword bingo.

A more intelligent approach is required; one where buzzword searching is replaced by semantic indexing and abstraction matching. This requires the IT recruiter to develop a deeper understanding of the terminology she is dealing with.

Specifically the recruiter needs to know:

• What relates to what
• What what actually is.

Those on the buy-side need to ensure that those on the sell-side understand this.

Click here for more e-Skills posts.