The enterprise software business is dying!
May 19, 2005The effects of software commoditisation are starting to take hold and bite hard. Andy Singleton has written a commentary on it over at IT Managers Journal . I agree with his view that
… a lot of people are spinning their wheels on long sales cycles, rather than innovating and delivering.
I Wanna Rock
May 18, 2005I’m a massive Ben Elton fan. I’ve read all of his novels, watched countless hours of The Young Ones , Blackadder , Mr Bean and the Thin Blue Line and last year went to see We Will Rock You, which was (in the words of Vyvyan) was Brilliant! The storyline goes like this …
The time is the future, in a place that was once called Earth. Globalisation is complete!
Everywhere, the kids watch the same movies, wear the same fashions and think the same thoughts.
It’s a safe, happy, Ga Ga world. Unless you’re a rebel. Unless you want to Rock. On Planet Mall all musical instruments are banned. The Company Computers generate the tunes and everybody downloads them. It is an age of Boy Bands and of Girl Bands. Of Boy and Girl Bands. Of Girl Bands with a couple of boys in them that look like girls anyway. Nothing is left to chance, hits are scheduled years in advance.
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
But Resistance is growing. Underneath the gleaming cities, down in the lower depths live the Bohemians. Rebels who believe that there was once a Golden Age when the kids formed their own bands and wrote their own songs. They call that time, The Rhapsody.
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see
Legend persists that somewhere on Planet Mall instruments still exist. Somewhere, the mighty axe of a great and hairy guitar god lies buried deep in rock. The Bohemians need a hero to find this axe and draw it from stone.
Is the one who calls himself Galileo that man?
He’s just a poor boy. From a poor family
But the Ga Ga Cops are also looking for Galileo and if they get him first they will surely drag him before the Killer Queen and consign him to oblivion across the Seven Seas of Rye.
Who is Galileo? Where is the Hairy One’s lost axe?
Where is the place of living rock?
Anywhere the wind blows
Aside from the great music and fantastic stage show, the one thing that struck me is the message behind the storyline. It’s a pretty powerful social observation and commentary on monoculture! You could almost do a search and replace on the storyline above with corporate culture, and the software industry, and the banking industry, and so on. Ga Ga world … I’ll have to remember that one.
Open Source - “amateurs”?
May 17, 2005This post has been lingering in my head for a while, and reappears because of similar thought patterns stirred up by reading Z&TAOMM again. Some time ago I read an editorial piece written by Marcus Ranum in which he says …
We all know the strategem, divide and conquer, but, honestly, Microsoft didn’t even need to take that initiative. They just sat back and watched free UNIX fail to become a credible threat because, well, frankly, it was in the hands of egotistical, detail-oriented amateurs.
This perception of FOSS supporters as egotistical amatuers is an interesting one. On the one-hand, I think I know where he’s coming from. There is definitely a tendancy towards detail orientation and communication styles are often blunt, opinionated and patronizing.
On the other hand, Chris Locke presents a compelling counter-argument …
Related to “amateur” is the even more pejorative term “dilettante” — someone who practices a craft or studies a field of knowledge in which he or she is not a “recognized professional.” But the etymological roots of these words tell a different story. Amateurs do what they do for love (from the Latin amare), while dilettantes are not mere casual dabblers, but instead are inspired by delight (from the Italian dilettare by way of the Latin delectare). But delight and passion for the work are precisely the qualities professionals tend to lose first. The opposite of professionalism is what Zen master Shunryu Suzuki called “beginner’s mind” — an ability to look at the world with fresh eyes and an open spirit.
This is a clear example of subject-object duality, and depending on your own orientation, your opinion will probably differ.
I think Locke’s is right on the mark — it’s passion and spirit — Gumption in Persig’s words — that is important, and is what will win at the end of the day!
On Vendor Lock-in
May 16, 2005Computer Economics recently conducted a survey of visitors to its website regarding the perceived advantages in the use of open source software.
One might think that the results of such a survey would point to low-costs as the main driver behind the adoption of open-source software. Not true … according to the results of this survey! They indicate that “Less dependence on Vendors” is the most important advantage in the use of open source software.
A call to action for proprietary software companies clinging to their traditional business models — wake up and smell the coffee!!
Go right young man
May 13, 2005On the topic of right vs. left brain, David Wolfe has a blog offers a great insight into the ageing population phenomenon and offers a perspective on the marketing strategies to deal with it.
