Posts by czechitout

Elon Musk 'buying Manchester United' football club

I hope Gary Neville doesn't read The Register, otherwise he'd be apologetic with rage at your post

Meta's Giphy buy could be back on after watchdog agrees to reboot investigation

Giphy is embedded in MS Teams

Andy Dwyer shocked gif

Welsh council extends contract for Oracle EBS 12.1 as it waits for Fusion

It is genuinely baffling how every council as well as Govt department, each with a maximum of a couple of thousand employees and a few hundred million in budgets/revenues all have their own HR and finance systems.

I guess no one is incentivised to turn off the taps to WITCH, especially when they have influence in the highest seats in Government.

Microsoft brings tabs to File Explorer

I can't say I've ever thought I needed tabs in File Explorer, on the basis you can have multiple windows open at once.

Tabs in MS Teams on the other hand...

Email out, Slack and Teams in for business communications

Re: Where did I see that ?

Teams search is terrible. It is just one of the many features in Teams which is only half build, but rolled out in a hurry as MS are desperate to try and grab market share.

Re: Just pick one

Even worse if when months later you try to find a document that you know you've seen, but you can't remember if it was attached to an email, Teams message, in a Team site or on SharePoint - and of course, there is no universal search tool, even if you are using exclusively Microsoft products.

The problem with these tool is that they are rolled out without any guiding principles or governance and quickly become an unmanageable mess.

UK.gov threatens to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

If I was being cynical, I'd say forcing people to prove who they are before being able to access social media makes it easy for the Government to crack down on activist/opponents.

On the flip side, it should be able to make it easy to identify foreign bot accounts, unless they all register using the same credit card from Mr Sergei Meerkat.

Western Australia Health taps SAP and Deloitte for AU$220m SaaS HR system over 10 years

Re: SAAS Will Not Decimate Implementation Efforts?

The $117m does include 20 years of support. However, $5m a year is still a lot. Can't see how many workers it includes though, so hard to tell for sure.

22-year-old Brit avoids US extradition over SIM-swapping conspiracy after judge deems him to be high suicide risk

And yet, neither Lauri Love or Gary McKinnon have been prosecuted in the UK, with one of the stated reasons not to prosecute McKinnon being "the logistics of transferring sensitive evidence prepared for a court in the US to London for trial".

I think it's fair to say this guy has got away with it.

If you're going to commit crime, make sure your victims are in the USA and you are literally untouchable. De Rose, like Lauri Love and Gary McKinnon before him avoids extradition and now clearly won't be prosecuted in the UK.

Ironically, one of the stated reasons the CPS didn't bring charges against McKinnon was "the logistics of transferring sensitive evidence prepared for a court in the US to London for trial."

It's almost as if prosecution in the USA is for practical reasons and not some vast global conspiracy to deprive British citizens of justice.

Another day, another ERP project behind schedule: This time it's Norfolk County Council and an Oracle system

Re: Not a rhetorical question

£3m to implement and then £3m per year for licences, support and maintenance for five years.

Oracle finance application customers more likely to leave for another vendor than SAP's – analyst

In HR technology the choice is easy. If the main factor is cost and you are currently an SAP customer, then choose SuccessFactors, as SAP will give you it for free. Otherwise choose Oracle, as they will give you Cloud HCM for a 90% discount as they are petrified of losing market share.

If on the other hand you want the best solution and are prepared to pay for it, you choose Workday.

A tiny island nation has put the rights to .tv up for grabs – but what’s this? Problematic contract clauses? Again?

"the Colombians used descriptions of Afilias' operations as the minimum technical requirements for its .co contract"

The good ol' "let the solution dictate the requirements" approach, they aren't the first and certainly won't be the last to fall into that trap.

Still reeling from the Great Facebook Blackout of 2021? Turns out Zuck is not the worst offender

It's hard to know when Reddit is broken, because it isn't entirely clear what "working" looks like.

OK, the search more often that not doesn't return anything sensible, the homepage often fails to load and I routinely get logged out but who knows if these are quirky features or not. There persistence suggests that no one at Reddit is even remotely trying to fix them.

Surrey County Council faces £700k additional SAP support fees as £30m Unit4 ERP set to miss go-live target

Re: Vendor

This requires the client to clearly and unambiguously define the scope of the project and not change anything during the implementation

Salesforce should rename its Dreamforce conference to Feverdreamforce because this is getting ridiculous

Not sure why the article has such a sneering tone. These vendor conferences are a great way to get out of the office for a few days and pick up some freebies. Plus, I wouldn't mind seeing Metallica or Foo Fighters. Lionel Richie, not so much.

McDonald's email blunder broadcasts database creds to comedy competition winners

Now I want a McDonald's

You can quote us on that: Workday scoops up job pricing specialist Zimit in focus on services

Re: Just awful

It depends what angle you're looking at it from.

I'd say Workday is the least sucky HR system, having implemented/worked with most of the major ones. It's UI is easily the best out of the major vendors (Workday, Oracle, SAP) and many of the common tasks required for bread and butter activities like payroll reports, integrations etc. it does out of the box, whereas other solution still require a lot of manual config.

In fact, the only reason not to go with Workday, for HR at least, is cost - and the only reason it costs the most is because it's the best, whereas SAP will offer you SuccessFactors for free if you're a major SAP user and Oracle will offer Cloud HCM for a massive discount as they are petrified of losing market share to Workday.

Trial of Theranos boss Elizabeth Holmes begins: She plans to say her boyfriend and COO Balwani abused her

She'll get off by playing the "he made me do it" card and he'll get off my claiming there's no way he can get a fair trail after having his name pulled through the mud during her trial. Mark my words.

You can now live life like Paul Allen on Microsoft cofounder's luxury yacht for '£1m a week'

Or we (I am using the royal we here) could book 250 weeks on this bad boy. How much time does the Govt spend schmoozing Saudi arms dealers anyway?

Workday shares slide following claims Amazon ditched company-wide HR system

Just for those who aren't People technology history buffs, PeopleSoft sold out to Oracle in 2005. Shortly afterwards, one of PeopleSoft's the founders and the chief strategist left Oracle and founded Workday, who are now Oracle's largest competitor in People systems.

Re: Starting to think Workday is a scam

It works both ways. I know companies who implemented Oracle Cloud, then binned it off in favour of Workday and are very happy with it.

A lot has to do with a company's expectations, the quality of their processes, requirements, user stories etc. the quality of their implementation partner(s) and so on.

Oracle is "cheap" because they offer massive discounts to avoid losing market share to Workday. Workday is the better solution on every level.

Source: I've implemented both and been involved in numerous RFPs with both vendors.

Cut us some Slack: $27bn+ later, collab tool officially belongs to Salesforce

Re: Goodbye to Slack

To be fair, Larry Ellison hates everything which isn't Oracle.

Gov.UK vows to chop red tape in the digital sector. What could possibly go wrong?

"like killing regulations that could potentially strip the UK of its "adequate" status in data protection laws and prevent UK businesses from engaging with any personal data shared by EU citizens in a post-Brexit world."

Shhh, you're not supposed to say things like that. Remember the line, de-regulation only has benefits and definitely doesn't increase the amount of hoops which British tech companies, who invariably handle data for subjects around the world, have to jump through.

Fujitsu wins £9m contract hike for Oracle HR system running nearly 3 years late at Northern Ireland Education Authority

Re: A Big Kick

Two reasons. Firstly, as above, it is my money the public sector is wasting.

Secondly, when a private sector company implements a new finance, HR or payroll solution it is usually the first time they've implemented that solution and/or paradigm (e.g. on-prem to cloud) it so you'd expect the usual bumps in the road.

The public sector on the other hand have done hundreds, if not thousands of implementations. For example, every council in Britain has their own finance, HR and payroll solutions. Therefore, not only should they be absolute experts in those implementations, they should also have their own off the shelf framework for implementing a public sector payroll solution which can be shared and followed.

Of course, they don't have that because every department, council etc. is its own silo, with no information shared, let alone a central team of "payroll implementers" who can go from project to project bringing best practice and "gotchas" from previous implementations with them.

Up to £80m on the table in University of Nottingham's search for service provider to lace together IT support

I suppose it depends who is negotiating the contract.

£35m for HR, payroll, finance and procurement is an eyewatering number. £5m for implementation leaves £30m. £4m per year for licences to industry-leading Workday, £200k for BDO to run the payroll (assuming they don't want to do it in-house), £200k per year for support (1,000 days @ £200 per day), £200k a year for enhancements - that's £4.6m per year or under £20m over four years. There's some massive profits margins/contingency in there for someone.hhhh

Unit4 handed police ERP deal after 'significant deficiency' found in Oracle Fusion system

Re: Something in the water?

It would be interesting to see how many of them are Oracle. They have, in my experience, the least honest salespeople, who will outright lie to your face, thinking that you've not implemented their system before, so don't know any better.

Of course, most companies don't know any better and only find out after the solution has been implemented and it fails to meet their expectations.

Following Supreme Court ruling, Uber UK recognizes drivers as workers, offers min wage, holiday pay, pension

Re: Fuck uber

Why is that? I use Uber when I go to London as black cabs are daylight robbery. Similarly, when abroad you know what you're getting, mainly a fare agreed in advance, therefore no risk of being "long hauled" by dishonest local drivers.

India's Big Four services champions want to become software vendors

I had a very brief stint working for one of these companies. Their in-house built internal systems were shocking. Unless their quality has taken a remarkable turn for the better, I can only assume they are relying on their clients not bothering to go out to the market and simply buying what these companies are offering.

Tata Consultancy Services wins £4m deal to carry out Oracle 'reimplementation' for University of Manchester

Well, they've gone for the cheapest option. Oracle are petrified of losing customers to the competition, so will give massive discounts, especially if they are your incumbent provider. TCS are just cheap. Good luck with that.

Back to the office with you: 'Perhaps 5 days is too much family time' – Workday CEO

The problem with Aneel's view and similar from other senior execs, is that it overlooks how modern work, well, works. Even when I'm in the office the vast majority of meetings have a dial-in element as there are always people in other offices, countries or even companies who need to be involved. This in turn limits the ability to use whiteboards or other ad hoc brainstorming that cannot be shared to remote attendees.

Making your staff come into the office to sit in Teams meetings all day is the peak of demoralising timewasting.

Capita finally finds buyer for education software biz, private equity Montagu to pay £400m

My old Dad used to say a company was worth three times net profit. Can someone explain how a product which turns over £95m is worth £400m?

UK West Midlands town finds five-year HR system deal is only offer on the table in pandemic-stricken procurement

To be fair, £1m over five years isn't bad. It would likely cost £1m to implement an alternative and then you have the licences on top.

The real question is why every local council has their own HR, payroll, finance etc. solutions rather than a regional or dare I say it, even centralised, system.

PUBG frags Tencent, adopts Azure and makes digital clothes the default in bid to get back into India

Sounds as if the Indian version is more akin to Fortnite and I wonder if this could be the basic of PUBG2?

You can forget your fancy ERP customisations because that's not how it works in the cloud, SAP's Oliver Betz tells users

They are similar enough for these SaaS solutions to met their requirements if they make some reasonable business process changes though. That's the crux.

In my experience, everyone is on board with the "no customisations" ethos, even the business stakeholders, until on roughly day two of the implementation Sandra from accounts payable is told she has to use a link to access her report rather than receiving it as an email attachment (ever heard of data security Sandra) and suddenly this is a MUST HAVE requirement.

Also, in my experience, every company thinks they are unique and that they have special requirements, but they're not. The number of times a company has a business process which genuinely cannot be met by configuration of the system and a simple process change, you could count on one hand.

The whole point of SaaS is that you're not hosting the vendors application on your own infrastructure with all the cost associated with patching, updates, upgrades, resources and so on. No customisations are a small price to pay for these benefits.

Congrats, HCL, on your £1.5m contract to upgrade a county council's ERP system to SAP S4/HANA within a year

Re: Typical excuses and delays will ensue

To be fair, that isn't unique to Indian outsourcing firms. Plenty of "tier one" consultancies will promise the Earth to win a contract and then use every trick in the book to move as much cash as possible from the client's pocket to their own.

Re: Timeline...

Timelines are often driven by the licence expiry of the current platform. Either way, they are almost always, as you say, completely arbitrary.

If you haven't patched WebLogic server console flaws in the last eight days 'assume it has been compromised'

Re: WebLogic?

Many Oracle COTS still come with WebLogic packaged as the web server.

Another reason to move to the cloud and away from Oracle.

Experian vows to drag UK's Information Commissioner's Office to court after being told off for data-slurping practices

I have always been baffled how credit reference companies can even exist alongside GDPR. As others have said, I have never explicitly given permission for my data to be passed on to them. The whole point of GDPR was to remove the implied consent of signing up for a service and then having these things hidden in the terms and conditions that your data will be sent left, right and centre to various other companies to hoover up.

Likewise, I have never given Experian, Equifax et al. permission to store or share my data with other companies.

In theory, open banking should be able to replace much of what the credit reference companies do today, rendering them obsolete.

Brit accused of spying on 772 people via webcam CCTV software tells court he'd end his life if extradited to US

"Christopher Taylor, a 57-year-old labourer, appeared by video link"

Oh the irony

Oh, the humanity! Microsoft congratulates itself for Teams inflicted on 115m daily users

Re: OK, I'll say it

You're falling for the "not going all in" issue. If you shared your screen and then doodled in whatever application you prefer, it would show large on your screen and not mirrored.

But yes, it is annoying only being able to see your cam as a tiny thumbnail.

OK, I'll say it

I actually like Teams. It has taken a while, but I now find that it is the application I have open on one screen all the time. It benefits from you going all in, I've worked with clients who have separate video conferencing, document management etc. tools and Teams feels like a clunky addition, but if you use it for all your meetings, document storage instant messaging and even task management, then it really comes into its own.

It isn't without its flaws, why you can only have one document open in Teams at a time is baffling, but you soon learn how to work around these foibles.

UK's Cheshire Police tenders for whole new ERP system after Oracle Fusion went live with 'significant deficiency'

Re: Not their main competency

The one way to absolutely guarantee that you'll spend more money than buying off the shelf HR, payroll, finance and procurement tools is trying to build it yourself.

Not only is it massively complex, there are numerous legislative and regulatory requirements for payroll along. You then have the vast ongoing costs of support, maintenance and keeping it thing updated with annual regulatory changes. And trust me, every year there are regulatory changes.

Despite every company I have ever consulted for thinking they are unique, I can assume you, they're not.

Re: "after a troubled launch of Oracle Fusion"

I hate to defend Oracle, but there isn't anything wrong with their offerings. They are more than likely poorly implemented with unclear or no requirements often by external consultancies staffed by people who have little or no experience delivering the solution.

Now I need to go and scrub the Ellison off of me.

PS. Workday is better than Oracle.

Top 5 billionaires find that global pandemics are good for business – and their wallets

Come on guys, FFS. What happened between in the month leading up to the 18th March? This isn't The Guardian, please don't regurgitate these stories with clearly cherry-picked numbers.

With no viable alternatives, big names flock to Adobe's cloudy wares amid global pandemic

Adobe seem to do a good job of operating under the radar. Everyone knows about Photoshop and Acrobat, but they clearly have a much broader offering. I can't recall any company I've worked for in the last five years even having an Adobe product as part of an RFP, let along actually buying one.

Does anyone have a breakdown of their largest products in a bit more detail than this article?