Archive for September, 2007

Honest tech…

Published by Ben Kepes on September 27, 2007 in Business and IT. 0 Comments

Hat tip to Zoli for finding this pic;

3371092_6d0af0365b1thumbnail.jpg

Look closely at the red circle!

Zoli also wrote this……

“it reminds me of *my* manager a decade ago, VP at a Very Big Very Blue company, who had his secretary fax his incoming email after him to whichever hotel he stayed at, then he scribbled his response on the fax, had the hotel fax it back to his secretary who finally typed it back in email and responded using her boss’s account”

Tragic as it sounds I know people today who still work like this - faxing things to PA’s to email, writing notes for someone else to email, asking PA’s to enter things onto calenders.

Let’s end this now - we live in the 21st century - if you’re in business or in management you have no option but to get connected and learn to use the tools!

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Two dinosaurs to merge?

Published by Ben Kepes on September 27, 2007 in Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, New Zealand and Society. 5 Comments

And I’m not talking traditional software companies here!

News that the Service and Food Workers Union (SFWU) and the National Distribution Union (NDU) are in talks about a merger. I’ve always been dubious about unions - my experiences have largely revolved around loud mouthed pommie imports (and some of my best friends are poms - don’t get me wrong), stirring up the workers with cries of “united we stand, divided we fall”.

I’ve seen a number of times workers “forced” to do things they didn’t really want to through some kind of groupthink, power of the masses mentality.

I believe that traditional unions are a barrier to New Zealand pulling itself out of the economic mire.

I also believe that, rather than spending time and efforts on unions to “protect workers rights” we should put all our efforts into growing our economy, such that employees are such valuable parts of our organisations that no employer in its right mind would consider treating them with anything but 120% respect.

What do others think?

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What it would take for me to ditch MS Office….

Published by Ben Kepes on September 26, 2007 in Design, IT and SaaS. 2 Comments

I work in an office with some pretty committed open sourcies that, in my opinion, are prepared to sacrifice functionality for actively not using a MS product. This isn’t neccessarily a bad thing, it’s just that for mission critical requirements (and for me given my multiple roles - email and calender are mission critical) I prefer to be a little less than leading edge.

Thus I’m a little more pragmatic and, while I love OS and SaaS, I use products that fulfill my requirements. Thus far, and for email and calendering, unfortunately Outlook wins.

So Google, Zoho, MS or whomeever, here’s what I need

  • Nice multi calender functionality with good drag and drop invitations
  • Hosted calenders with offline access
  • Seamless full 2-way sync between all calenders and my mobile device(s)
  • Multiple email addresses
  • Multiple signatures and customisable address/signature relationships
  • Robust ability to collaborate with the majority of folks (who use Outlook)
  • Smart SMTP/Connection sensing
  • An intuitive (and familiar) GUI for email and calendering on my mobile

Note that Outlook doesn’t have all of this functionality, but it has more than the competitors thus far.

GMail version two is coming to a beta tester near you and I have a sneaking suspicion that it will bridge the gap and convince me to change once.

So what do other use? And what are your most critical requirements?

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Another point of view on the ISV to SaaS connundrum….

Published by Ben Kepes on September 26, 2007 in Business, IT, SaaS and Strategy. 0 Comments

Over on Smoothspan, Bob interviewed the CEO of SaaS expense claim and business travel booking automator Concur, Steve Singh.

It is an excellent interview but the defining moment for me came in the following excerpt;

Do you think SaaS is an inevitable bridge that every ISV has to cross in some form or fashion?

Steve:  Absolutely.  Look at what’s happened in the last 30 years.  We went from mainframes and sky high transaction costs with few users.  Then we went minis.  Lower costs, more users.  Micro/PC.  Web-based On-demand  is the lowest cost structure and most users yet.  It’s inevitable continuation.

Any other advice for those who want to convert?

Steve:  This is just one guy’s prediction.  I don’t believe large companies can make the conversion.  Forget their genetic code.  How many will take the pain?  Companies won’t reinvent themselves. 

Think of taking a $40B company to On-demand.  The value of the business will go through huge negative change.  It will get crushed.  Cash flow will get crushed.  You have to layoff.  The transition is really hard and its very sudden.

If you’re north of $100M its hard.  Over $1B its impossible.

I’d like to compare businesses that have gone through fundamental shifts in the business model.  Very few have done it.  Intel is one.  But for every Intel there are 100 DECs.

You will see a next generation of leaders that don’t look anything like the last generation.  Keep your eye on the SaaS leaders.  Lots will happen there.

I couldn’t agree more - and this is the reason that Oracle founder Larry Ellison bags SaaS on the one hand and invests in it on the other.

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