Posts by David Gale 129 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Oct 2008
You have to ask how long it will be before shareholders realise that a split-up and sell-off of Microsoft might not be quite the bonanza that they had anticipated. When they do realise, they're going to want to see a more strategic leverage of Microsoft's strengths rather the persistent 'white socks and Gucci shoes' pile 'em high tactical emphasis.
For goodness sake, Microsoft, get a grip!
Government should be focusing on a public sector network to deliver a PROPER shared IT infrastructure capability amongst public sector organisations.
For example:
Q: WHY are there over a hundred individual implementations of Exchange server in public sector organisations in my region?
A: Because public sector directors are parochial players, public sector organisations don't have the skills or structure to run with a formal enterprise architecture, government will not clamp down on the parochial but profitable remit of public sector suppliers, and lastly, because, depsite the promises in opposition, we always end up with a clueless f*ckwit of a minister with no remit to deliver a coherent long-term strategy.
A slate with a raised dock? Whatever will they think of next? http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/HP%20docking%20station%20003.jpg circa 2003... mine's still going strong and is a valuable component of my workflow because it runs the same apps as my workstation...
Here are two statements that are completely agreed on by the IPCC. It is crucial to be aware of their implications:
1. A doubling of CO2, by itself, contributes only about 1C to greenhouse warming. All models project more warming, because, within models, there are positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds, and these feedbacks are considered by the IPCC to be uncertain.
2. If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C. The higher sensitivity of existing models is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments.
Given the above, the notion that alarming warming is ‘settled science’ should be offensive to any sentient individual, though to be sure, the above is hardly emphasized by the IPCC.
Taken from:
Reconsidering the Climate Change Act Global Warming: How to approach the science.
Richard S. Lindzen
Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Seminar at the House of Commons Committee Rooms
Westminster, London
22nd February 2012
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/rsl-houseofcommons-2012.pdf
"Yes that's right, the last time I went to buy an operating system for my computer, I thought "you know what, I'm going with Windows this time becasue the logo looks cool".
Aesthetics over function? With the exception of the design (sic) community, isn't that exactly what the majority of people do when they're choosing a Mac?
A very apt logo given that the IT world is dumbing down and Microsoft couldn't recognise a strategic advantage if it jumped up and kicked them in the head...
Whilst I will miss watching F1, I will get used to not watching it in the same way as I have with football and cricket. The chap who mentioned MotoGP has a point that I'd forgotten. I watched it a few times last year and was bitten by the bug, massively more entertaining in every way compared to F1: closer racing, more exciting spectacle, down to earth competitors and commentators, and a lack of the pompous, politically correct, up my own orifice BS that beleagures F1.
"While World+Dog barked viciously at the new arrangement, die-hard fans of the sport will no doubt stump up the cash regardless, reluctantly piling their pounds into Murdoch's packed pockets."
Really? That's a bad miscalculation by F1. I and many others will not knowingly put a penny into Murdoch's pocket. F1 will go the same way as football and cricket in the UK: millions will stop watching it which, as already proven, will rip out young grassroots growth leaving an ageing audience with little relevance to sponsors.
It is the death-knell for F1.
Wonderful! Now what about a coherent strategy for the enterprise? All the technically productive focus in the world will not make up for a complete dearth of strategy.
This at a time when Apple's raw underbelly is exposed as people find out the hard way (again!) that standalone gizmos do not an enterprise architecture make.
Don't worry, Steve, we gave up on any expectation of ethical standards years ago...
http://www.TADAG.com
This is small fry compared to the manipulation of their own search index. The regularity with which inconvenient political truths are 'forgotten' by Google's index evidences a direct, political manipulation of the internet which should concern us all. Would I trust Google? Not a chance.
WP7? Wasn't that that consumer incarnation of windows mobile that scrubbed nearly a decade of XDA development?
Anyone who has invested in MS technologies has found their 'open source' niche with XP and Office 2K7 on the desktop and WM6.5 on their mobile. You'll note that the now ancient HTC HD2 is STILL holding its price.
Microsoft's current crop of barrow-boy executives will never understand strategy. They need a boardroom clear-out.
Having personally witnessed the lying, deceiving filth that masqueraded as the FSA (go on, sue me - I have the evidence!) covering up data losses and fraud inside the financial services industry in the Noughties, backed up by the 'safe pairs of hands' that sat on the bench, I can only ask what did anyone expect? If one struggles to get Law in an English court when vested interests are at stake, what chance of justice?
Readers will note that the course of action recommended by this particular safe pair of hands is a legislative chamber stuffed fulled of lawyers.
There's one Law for them that 'as and another for them that 'asn't...
The only business case for public investment for superfast broadband that I can conceive is:
A NATIONAL PUBLIC SECTOR fibre network to deliver shared IT services to public sector organisations - that's publicly owned, NOT the over-priced charade that's 'supplied' by the telcos. The business case for shared services disappears the moment a private network supplier is factored in.
Everything else can be a condition of a telco licence to be funded by the private sector.
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
Great ideas will always fail if the marketing is poor - I'm still a regular user of an HP TC1100 Windows Tablet that must be 7-8 year old by now. It runs Windows 7 with ease but I prefer XP. Abysmal marketing by HP and a lukewarm effort by Microsoft killed off what is still the most functional business tablet ever produced.
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
I'm still using a 2003 HP TC1100 tablet that's now happily running Windows 7. It's still my main mobile machine and I still use it to present video and other heavy-duty media in large, corporate and government presentations. I think we're used to HP throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They stole a march on the opposition with what is still the best tablet designed for business use and then promptly junked it. So, none of the current 'direction' should be of any surprise...
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
There's another area of governance, that can be quite thin, that prevents business managers and suppliers proliferating the deployment of non-strategic point solutions to nail their short-term targets. The individual business cases for these projects can look compelling but unless there is real governance around the enterprise architecture and the IT strategy, the costs of administering and integrating this mish-mash can escalate out of control. In my experience, code monkeys are only too pleased to immerse themselves in these 'highly focussed' projects as a means of demonstrating their prowess and, if the end result nails someone's promotion or sales target, they can develop an unstoppable momentum. The key to keeping the enterprise architecture and the IT strategy firmly on track is buy-in at board level and having senior IT management with a clearly defined architecture linked to the vision for the business. Fail to do this and I can show you examples of 'quick wins' that have cost organisations £millions in the longer term.
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
In my experience of dealing with over two hundred local authorities across the world, not one in the UK has had a properly empowered CIO. So, talk of getting rid of CIOs seems to miss the mark. The single largest IT cost for the public sector is driven by the complete dearth of strategic thinking. Too many authorities are at the mercy of senior managers with short-term, performance-managed targets, facilitated by IT suppliers with a view on equally short-term sales. There are very few local authorities with coherent IT or Information Management strategies that have the governance in place to prevent short-term 'point solutions'.
Socitm's 'Planting the Flag' is an excellent start at defining what needs to be done from a strategic perspective but, as things stand, the public sector has neither the skills nor the inclination to think long-term. Let's get controversial: What do you do when the officer with the short-term mission and a cosy band of preferred suppliers in tow is the CEO, backed by a chamber full of clueless councillors?
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
Blog at: http://www.sitfo.wordpress.com
Will someone please try to communicate with the Emperor? "Integration in the Cloud" confirms that those propogating the myth around his Imperial Majesty's satorial elegance have little or no idea of their subject matter.
Many complex integrations are either impossible or undesireable to deliver in a public cloud. If that turns out to be you, then Going Cloud' can ultimately mean a permanent ham-stringing of your IT Strategy's capability to respond to changing business needs. Exaclty NOT where to take your IT starategy.
Granted, the software industry got its sustainable revenue model but can we ditch this fashion parade and get back to allowing people with real knowledge to define strategy?
Why are the Cabinet Office talking to Facebook, when the originator and the IPR of TADAG is in the UK? A small component of TADAG spawned OpenID, now on a billion computers world-wide. Maybe they ought to think about sustainable architectures before they go dressing their shop window...?
I wonder how far the Plaintiffs read? Follow the link from the article to the original complaint filed in the californian Court. then look at Page 63 lines 26-27.
The case appears to rest on the Defendants knowing that "such statements would cause harm to the Plaintiffs IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA"
Oooops!
Yes, there may be small companies and privately owned manufacturers of a single widget for whom a public cloud solution might be beneficial. In a complex enterprise, the reality is very different.
There are many short-term, accountancy and bonus-driven CEOs and FDs that will look at the bottom line without understanding the loss of flexibility in preventing their enterprises from integrating multiple, disparate data sources and systems, and killing off any opportunity to independently manipulate and manage business processes without having to go cap in hand to a cloud-based ERP supplier. For most large organisations, what the cloud delivers in terms of capital efficiency, it more than takes away in loss of response and flexibility to changing business needs.
For the most part, the companies that go to public cloud will do so with little in the way of strategic, architectural governance over IT. In the long term, that may well cost them a competitive advantage.
See the article: 'Not Every Cloud has a Silver Lining' at http://sitfo.wordpress.com
Dear Mr Ballmer
First you have to create an environment where employees have a shared vision of the way forward, THEN you have to pay them a competitive rate. Unfortunately, a large part of the talent has already left, leaving the corporate clones and lawyers that Microsoft took onboard as it moved to the critical mass of a self-replicating bureaucracy.
My advice? Fight the war on your terms, not those of the opposition. Stop chasing point solutions in the Cloud and start leveraging the integration capability of your product stack. Do that properly and you can and will annihilate the opposition.
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
Let's be clear about why Microsoft is focused on this business: there are enough 2nd user MS Office licences out there for their traditional business model to be redundant.
As for "Potential listers will have to promise to provide "unique intellectual property"" - oh, really? Microsoft don't have the best reputation in the world for acknowledging the IPR of their business partners, do they? ( www.tadag.com )
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
"Exchange in the Cloud allowed us to grow our business from a one-man-shop to a distributed small business without having to worry about infrastructure or capital costs beyond laptops, phones and DSL "
I would suggest that you have a look at Small Business Server - we run it on what would otherwise have been a redundant PC. It's sat in a cupboard for five years, runs Windows Server, Exchange, SharePoint and ISA server. It delivers push email, OWA, OMA, a collaborative working environment and all of the rich facilities of its corporate cousins. It has worked flawlessly without intervention and paid fof itself in less than 12 months costing only a few £100s. Oh, and the 2003 version needs less hardware and is just as good! Way to go...
This is not a low-level failure. This should not happen in a large public sector organisation. The council is required to have rigourous information management policies in place under an over-arching Information Management Strategy, with governance that goes all the way to chief officer level.
We will be happy to assist you with this regard.
David Gale
CEO
SITFO.org
Let's take Lewis's stats at face value for the moment. What does it tell us? It tells us that we need a strategic architecture aligned to a national energy strategy. Not piecemeal policies that pander to one or other lobby groups. If wind is a renewable source, don't carp about not being able to store its energy, build the storage capability... and whilst you're at it, who would advocate the UK having the smallest gas storage facility in western Europe? Sensitive to price fluctuations? Moi?
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