There's a great overview demo at: http://www.apple.com/iphone/guidedtour/#large. I'm also not impressed by the costs on O2 (http://shop.o2.co.uk/update/paymonth.html) but I don't hold out much hope for that to change quickly.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Will I update to iPhone 3GS?
At the moment, the answer is probably no - I certainly need to see how many of the new features will be enabled by OS 3.0 on my current version first. The camera and video functionality do look fantastic though and you can never have too much memory so the 32Gb version would be nice.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
SalesForce's "No Software" - hmmm ....
#cloudforce I've been thinking about the "No Software" msg - It's great, really eye-catching and a very strong message. But are SF being a little bit mischievious? If SF allows infinite configuration, storage, sequencing of operations (worflow), selection and iteration, then isn't that a programming language? If it's not, then every customer has exactly the same system and can't generate any competitive advantage.
I think it is a great message for corporations (big and v. small) where it doesn't make sense to be running commidity applications like HR, payroll etc. on-premise with custom applications and the associated support systems and people. Clearly SF (and their ISVs) have great solutions in that area.
But their proposition of "No Software" doesn't make sense where:
a) An organization already has systems that generate significant business value and are their competitive differentiator. Why would anyone move to standard package offerings (albeit with lots of configuration options) and lose that differentiation? The risks and effort (who in the organization really knows what those existing systems, which may have been running for years or decase, do?) are enormous and rarely cost-effective.
b) Why would an organization using a standard language (Java, COBOL or whatever) rewrite critical business systems in a proprietary, XML based language that only runs on one provider's platform. Surely that's too much too big a risk to take?
c) Once those systems have been highly customized, they need maintenance and enhancement just like any other language. So the organziation will need to keep staff to maintain their systems and supposedly one of the benefits of "No Software" is that you don't need to keep your own IT programming organization.
So, I'll say again, SalesForce have fantastic offerings (the demo at CloudForce of the "genius" feature was v. impressive) but to propose that this is the ultimate replacement for all programming and customized systems is wrong. I would agree that there's less and less reason for those systems to be running in-house but they should stay in the original style (Java, COBOL, C++ etc.) - keep the valuable applications (and maybe start to extend those apps to exploit the new platform) but move them and their systems support out of house.
I think it is a great message for corporations (big and v. small) where it doesn't make sense to be running commidity applications like HR, payroll etc. on-premise with custom applications and the associated support systems and people. Clearly SF (and their ISVs) have great solutions in that area.
But their proposition of "No Software" doesn't make sense where:
a) An organization already has systems that generate significant business value and are their competitive differentiator. Why would anyone move to standard package offerings (albeit with lots of configuration options) and lose that differentiation? The risks and effort (who in the organization really knows what those existing systems, which may have been running for years or decase, do?) are enormous and rarely cost-effective.
b) Why would an organization using a standard language (Java, COBOL or whatever) rewrite critical business systems in a proprietary, XML based language that only runs on one provider's platform. Surely that's too much too big a risk to take?
c) Once those systems have been highly customized, they need maintenance and enhancement just like any other language. So the organziation will need to keep staff to maintain their systems and supposedly one of the benefits of "No Software" is that you don't need to keep your own IT programming organization.
So, I'll say again, SalesForce have fantastic offerings (the demo at CloudForce of the "genius" feature was v. impressive) but to propose that this is the ultimate replacement for all programming and customized systems is wrong. I would agree that there's less and less reason for those systems to be running in-house but they should stay in the original style (Java, COBOL, C++ etc.) - keep the valuable applications (and maybe start to extend those apps to exploit the new platform) but move them and their systems support out of house.
Friday, 6 March 2009
Dumb Twitter marketing
I've noticed some friends on Twitter & Facebook have been making strange posts recently. It looks like their company has a new campaign and all of sudden campaign messages have started appearing in status updates from staff members with links to the corporate site.
Don't get me wrong, it's ok for people to promote themselves, their company, their products, their services. I do it myself occasionally.
What is dumb is pushing messages out that look like they were cut & pasted from a Press Release. You know when someone's not using their own voice and when you see messages from multiple people in the same company with the same dumb messages, the effect is even greater. I'm also worried that the company may be hijacking personal accounts/personas - do they know?
So, no problem with people doing promotion, but it has to be genuine - people making their own posts in their own voice.
Ok, rant (somewhat toned down) over. "I could crush a grape!"
Don't get me wrong, it's ok for people to promote themselves, their company, their products, their services. I do it myself occasionally.
What is dumb is pushing messages out that look like they were cut & pasted from a Press Release. You know when someone's not using their own voice and when you see messages from multiple people in the same company with the same dumb messages, the effect is even greater. I'm also worried that the company may be hijacking personal accounts/personas - do they know?
So, no problem with people doing promotion, but it has to be genuine - people making their own posts in their own voice.
Ok, rant (somewhat toned down) over. "I could crush a grape!"
Sunday, 8 February 2009
I Love Twitter, but ...
I've been on Twitter now for a few weeks - mostly listening and starting to do some mostly work related postings (although I suspect I'm a little ahead of the adoption curve compared to my customers).
I'm loving the near realtime aspect, the short and therefore focussed messages, and variety of people I've found so far.
There are some great clients available on multiple platforms. I really liked TweetDeck but find it fairly unstable on both Mac and Windows. Twhirl looks good but doesn't have an iPhone version, doesn't support groups. Tweetie on iPhone is nice, but phone only. PowerTwitter extension for Firefox is a nice tool for web reading with its inline expansion of twitpics etc. I'm using combination of iPhone, Mac, Windows and Web so I may be a little more demanding than most users, or perhaps I'm not...
So, it looks to me like we're waiting for the ultimate client. What I would like to see is:
1. Same client on all platforms - iPhone, Web, Mac, Windows (others may want Linux, or even z/OS!)
2. Keep track of where I last read to and get me all messages since then. I realize there are limits to the number of API calls that can be made, but this can be worked around by limiting to selected groups of writers or demand paging as moving forward from that point. Each client on each platform should have awareness of that "last read" point.
3. Groups are pretty much obligatory. There are people I will always read, some I'll read occassionally, some related to work, ....
4. Spam filtering, although I don't think this is really something the client can help with. I'm surprised by how many people have chosen to follow me even though I've not really made much contribution yet. I always take a look to see who they are and I don't automatically follow back. Key words I've noticed in profiles that will tend to put me off - "serial entrepreneur", "network market specialist", or anything to do with Jesus or christian (that's a more personal choice rather than trying to avoid spam).
5. Threaded conversations. I frequently follow the links from a posting "in reply to" to see the original question or comment and this is frequently how I find someone interesting to follow. But wouldn't it be nice to see both the whole conversation in a threaded style?
Perhaps there are some clients that can already do the above. If so, please leave a recommendation.
I also use FriendFeed, which I like a lot, and that has a lot of the features - conversations, grouping, in line expansion of images etc. However there is quite a long lag between postings and arriving in FF which Twitter does remarkably well - it's really interesting watching the 6-nations rugby with twitter commentary (esp. see @willcarling) which I guess might have been the same for Americans watching the Super Bowl.
Anyway, I'm still enjoying the whole twitter experience. I know it's early days and hopefully it's going to go from strength to strength.
I'm loving the near realtime aspect, the short and therefore focussed messages, and variety of people I've found so far.
There are some great clients available on multiple platforms. I really liked TweetDeck but find it fairly unstable on both Mac and Windows. Twhirl looks good but doesn't have an iPhone version, doesn't support groups. Tweetie on iPhone is nice, but phone only. PowerTwitter extension for Firefox is a nice tool for web reading with its inline expansion of twitpics etc. I'm using combination of iPhone, Mac, Windows and Web so I may be a little more demanding than most users, or perhaps I'm not...
So, it looks to me like we're waiting for the ultimate client. What I would like to see is:
1. Same client on all platforms - iPhone, Web, Mac, Windows (others may want Linux, or even z/OS!)
2. Keep track of where I last read to and get me all messages since then. I realize there are limits to the number of API calls that can be made, but this can be worked around by limiting to selected groups of writers or demand paging as moving forward from that point. Each client on each platform should have awareness of that "last read" point.
3. Groups are pretty much obligatory. There are people I will always read, some I'll read occassionally, some related to work, ....
4. Spam filtering, although I don't think this is really something the client can help with. I'm surprised by how many people have chosen to follow me even though I've not really made much contribution yet. I always take a look to see who they are and I don't automatically follow back. Key words I've noticed in profiles that will tend to put me off - "serial entrepreneur", "network market specialist", or anything to do with Jesus or christian (that's a more personal choice rather than trying to avoid spam).
5. Threaded conversations. I frequently follow the links from a posting "in reply to" to see the original question or comment and this is frequently how I find someone interesting to follow. But wouldn't it be nice to see both the whole conversation in a threaded style?
Perhaps there are some clients that can already do the above. If so, please leave a recommendation.
I also use FriendFeed, which I like a lot, and that has a lot of the features - conversations, grouping, in line expansion of images etc. However there is quite a long lag between postings and arriving in FF which Twitter does remarkably well - it's really interesting watching the 6-nations rugby with twitter commentary (esp. see @willcarling) which I guess might have been the same for Americans watching the Super Bowl.
Anyway, I'm still enjoying the whole twitter experience. I know it's early days and hopefully it's going to go from strength to strength.
Monday, 22 December 2008
The Big Picture News - shuttle recycling
I've only recently discovered "The Big Picture" (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/) but I can see this is going to be a site to visit frequently. Great set of photos covering the liefcycle of a shuttle mission (http://bit.ly/2h01RX) - who knew they had a huge parachute washing & drying facility!
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