The NOSE

Does IT Matter?

I have been in endless discussions about Nicolas Carr's thesis that IT doesn't matter anymore. As IT increasingly becomes a commodity and your competitors have access to the same set of standard goods and services that you do, where is the basis for competitive advantage?

Dell CEO Kevin Rollins, one of the most brilliant but unassuming business leaders, provides a succinct rebuttal to Carr's thesis in CNNMoney:

"That's absolutely wrong. ... But now what counts most is the execution and implementation of all the standard pieces. And you can do that poorly. You can buy the wrong pieces, or you can buy the right pieces and do it well."

Carr, however, notes that Rollins is pointing to a management advantage, not a technological advantage.

Michael Schrage has made a similar point about innovation. Instead of constantly chasing the next new idea within the firm, the key to innovation is overcoming resistance to change within your organization. Rollins and Schrage are making the same point in different ways: Execution and Judgment still matter.

Project Fusion or Project Meltdown?

With rockets blazing and rock music thumping Oracle recently announced that it's "Half Way to Fusion". I wrote about the project briefly in May 2005, expressing my skepticism. Where are we six months later?

What is Project Fusion? Project Fusion is Oracle's next generation enterprise technology which aims to unify Oracle EBS, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel platforms. Now that Larry Ellison has finished his shock and awe acquisition strategy, Project Fusion promises to unify the disparate applications into a unified platform that "extends and evolves the best functionality" from each. Sounds good in theory. What about in practice? For a brilliant, in-depth, entertaining contrarian view on Project Fusion, check out Niel Robertson's "I Pity the Fool". It's clear that Oracle customers are in for a scorcher. Let's hope Oracle enterprise customers have enough heat shields to survive re-entry into the atmosphere.

(Even if you are not all that interested in Project Fusion, Robertson's blog entry is one of the best among the best.)

Via Feld Thoughts

Feds Seek Backdoor Into All Network Communications

The Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Agency have jointly petitioned the FCC (Federal Communications Commision) to mandate that all networking equipment and software be manufactured with a backdoor for federal wiretapping. Once the rule goes into effect manufacturers would have eighteen months to comply. Setting aside the privacy issues I wonder if this will make our network infrastructure more vulnerable to hackers and cyberterrorists.

 

New Power Tool

For everyone an email client is indispensable. And for most everyone a news aggregator will soon follow. I am a high volume feed reader, using it as one of the primary means for staying abreast of technology news and industry trends.

I made the switch to FeedLounge recently and love it. It sets the standard for simplicity and elegance without compromising the features power users expect. It's a web-based application that makes great use of AJAX.

Being miserly by nature I was hesitant to shell out $50 for an annual subscription. But Stephen O'Grady persuaded me. It's worth every dollar.

Firefox Tabs

I am not as fastidious about "organizing" my life as I should be. Some woud say I border on the slothful. Since I don't believe in revolutionary lifestyle changes, I am occasionally on the lookout for small lifestyle hacks that can earn minor efficiency dividends. I have known about Firefox Tabs but I didn't use it at all until I discovered that under Forefox preferences you can set your home page to multiple tab locations.  Now, whenever I launch Firefox in the morning it fires up all the sites that I use on a daily basis. A little feature that leads to an incremental improvement in the quality of my online life.

lazyboy  Originally uploaded by _shazam.