"How SaaS hurts a fragile IT economy"...

Title borrowed from this article on Computerworld. Of course you should read the article and make your own decision on this one, but the gist is summarized in the final paragraph:

Despite this dark analysis, let me go back to my first sentence. "SaaS is a wonderful choice for a business manager." It is. And, should these tough times ever pass, it will be a god-send choice to launch new business initiatives and to quickly gain competitive advantage in an expanding market. Until those days come, however, it will be used in large measure to avoid spending money, which, during a recession is an added burden weighing down our economy.

My general feeling on this topic is - SaaS is great:

1. As anyone in the IT world knows, most IT projects fail. And it's not just a small percentage that do, this article has it at 68%.
2. One reason most projects fail is that there is a HORRID communication problem between technology and business. It's not that the IT people know better, nor that the business side does. It's simply that the two sides simply do not know how to talk to each other.
3. No one likes failure - and everyone involved with it goes home depressed dealing with it all
4. There really are grunt level IT jobs, the 'IT Crowd' show does hit home
5. If you can't compete you can't win - and if someone else can provide a product faster and cheaper to market they should use it
6. Did not realize that companies exist to provide employment, believe the ability to employ comes from having products that consumers want.
   

While there are some that look only at costs, most business people I've worked with understand nothing is ever perfect and there are always trade offs. However, in a lot of situations you've got the choice of working with an IT group and all it's headaches against working with a subject expert on a manageable project with less upfront risk - why would you not try it?

Be strategic on the IT side and add value and you and your company survive. Do not and you've two options:

• Your company will realize it can get work done elsewhere faster and will choose to
• Your company will not realize how to get work done anywhere and it will fail

I vote for enabling and not getting caught up on where things get built

Goodbye 2008

Few more hours and 2008 is soon over. 2008 was an interesting year for a lot of reasons, but in general hoping that 2009 turns out to be better than 2008 was.

Financially hoping that we at least stop hemorrhaging value in things like IRAs, 529s, home equity, etc. Did everything right but the portfolio is not what it was at the start of the year.

Will see how the career side shapes up - will see what happens in the next few weeks regarding kangaroo's regulatory hurdles.

Wrapping up the year

It's that time of the year, wrapping up all sorts of stuff so can start off 'fresh' as of January. Given we are not live yet, and due to the way the holiday calendar looks we are closing down the office for two weeks. We've been all out trying to get stuff working, I know everyone in the office will be happy to have some down time. I'll still have stuff to do, but all of it can be done remotely.

I'm back in the states for two weeks with the family, looking forward to having more than a few days of time with everyone given I've been gone as much as I have been.

Time, Time, Time

I've been meaning to keep up with this more but I'll give myself a FAIL. Have all good reasons but in the end I've been running on overdrive for the last two months

At work we continue to work on delivering a service. We had a bunch of news last week about the competition commission issues. I'm most certainly not in a position to comment on this, about all I can say is I wish the process was over so we can move on in what ever fashion we can.

In the mean time I'm out looking at London private schools, coming from public school in the states - let me just say OUCH ££££££££££ and then lets add some more ££££££ to the mix

I've been flying back and forth to the states, was back for a week for Thanksgiving and I'm back again for two weeks for the holidays. I'm getting pretty good at adjusting in advance for the jet lag which really does help. Somehow though I'm not going to make platinum on American this year - odd with all the flights I've done but seems my Delta and BA flights have done me in

Interesting week

Well it's been an interesting week at the office as my ceo resigned last weekend. I did manage to get a bit of press out of it myself.

Time will tell what this really means. I continue to focus on delivering an actual product, we've been unable to get anything out the door for lots of reasons. I can't do anything about any of it so best to just let things sort themselves out and go from there

I just can't think about the fact that the pound is at a rather low mark (1.48 today against the dollar) and I earn in pounds. Good thing I don't have to transfer funds back to pay US expenses right now.

hope for the future?

For today it's a great day to be a US citizen - we've sent a message that the American Dream is really alive and you need not be a wasp to get to the top. To not admit we've just put real hope into a lot of Americans is to undermine just how historical this is

The cynic side of me says somehow politics as usual will return. As an independent who has voted both republican and democratic in past years lets hope President-Elect really does move to the strong center, brings real fiscal responsibility back (as our republican administration has failed miserably at these last eight years) and does the right thing for the people. I'll gladly pay more taxes for that

It matters: As Americans we've really never been about nation building, lets just go back to having respect of each other internally and externally. The idiots of this world will continue to harm us regardless, lets live the way we want to and not let others dictate how we live

Week Four in London

I've been swamped the last few weeks and have been bad on updates. Had promised to myself I'd do more updates but I've been busy with work so twittering is about all I've had time to do.

My observations of London so far:

1. I get why there are the 'look right/look left' painted on the ground in tourist areas, but why do they exist on my street corner? No tourist is going to step off the road the wrong way here
2. The circle tube line is - well - as a friend at CBS likes to say, it has "square wheels"
3. The weather is strange. Sunny and somewhat warm to rainy and darn cold on the same day. I've had the fortune of being in London in October with snow coming down - first time in over 70 years and I was here. Feeling a bit like poester with nyc disasters ;-)
4. Why would one order a 'half pint' of ale? Brings to mind little house on the prairie.

Fair enough, that's all being petty so lets move on. In all honesty I don't yet feel like I've done anything but acclimate to the time zone. Work right now is not that different from the states and my family is not here (though they came over last weekend) so it feels more like an extended business trip.

That said over time I'm sure it will dawn on me that it's really a different country, I've been warned by others to be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking things really are the same - so I try to keep the mind open.

I've started the process of looking for schools, anyone have suggestions on things to look for please advise as I've got to get this taken care of somewhat soon. Will be a driver on where we end up living