More change

If you haven’t heard, Google has now launched it own phone called the Nexus One. You can read more about it at “Google launches Nexus One ‘superphone’” and read an online review from Endgadget. Interestingly, Google is offering this phone directly to customers via its web site, which means you can just buy the handset and insert just about any carrier’s SIM. This is certainly a big change from the way things have been traditionally, yet it is not the only change that this Google phone is likely to create.

The article “Google shows how to trash a business model or three” demonstrates how the Google phone could dramatically affect not only the handset, phone provider and GPS markets but how the operating system that runs on the Nexus One (Android) could end up running in many common household devices. If this is not bad enough for the competition I can think of another major reason why the competition should be running scared.

What would happen if Google offered the phone for free say, in exchange for pushing you advertising? Would you take it? Such a business model really only makes sense for someone like Google and it could potentially blow competitors our of the water. How can they compete with a $0 phone? The phone business is not what’s important to Google, it’s about getting more people connected to the Internet so they view Google Ads, and in that respect it makes sense to subsidize handsets for consumers.

You’d therefore think that it’s also logical for Google to offer free Internet WiFi access to people wouldn’t you? Guess what? They’re already doing that, see “Free WiFi for the holidays”. Do you begin to see how Google is shaking up the market? I certainly do and can only see it only getting rougher for anyone who doesn’t appreciate that (barring an anti-competition suit from the U.S. Department of Justice or the European Union, which is becoming more likely every day now).

If you want to start understanding the mind of Google I’d recommend you read “What Would Google Do” by Jeff Jarvis. You can even read in on the Amazon Kindle but maybe soon the Google e-book device.

Given that this year the number of mobile devices accessing the Internet (i.e. mobile phones) will exceed the number of desktop devices (i.e. PC’s), so I’ve heard at least, who stands to benefit the most from this? Perhaps Google and Apple? Who stands to loss the most from this? Perhaps Microsoft? What is Microsoft’s response so far to the threat? Good question. Not having used either alternative to Microsoft’s offering I can only speculate, but having read “What Would Google Do” and know who I’d put money on at this stage.

Another nail

One the major selling points of something like Microsoft Exchange Server is that it not only allows you to send and receive emails, but it also has a calendar that in a network environment you can share with others. This allows people to see when others are busy, schedule meetings and so on. Very handy. The problem now is that this type of functionality is locked inside a business’s network and also it typically doesn’t work with people using other calendaring platforms like Google Calendar.

A potential solution to this issue that I have discovered is Tungle. In summary here’s what it offers:

Schedule – Send invitations proposing multiple times and let Tungle find the time that works for everyone. Tungle handles everything from time zones, to double booking, to updating your calendar.

Publish – Customize your personal scheduling page. Show only the times you want to be available. Invite others to schedule meetings with you. Meetings get booked on your terms and others don’t have to sign up.

Share – Share calendars across companies, systems and time zones. You control who you share with and what you share – free/busy or full details

Tungle works from Outlook, Google Calendar, iCal/Entourage and Lotus Notes. I have created an account and published my calendar at http://tungle.me/ciaops. If you visit the you’ll see all the available times I have. If you wanted to have a meeting with me then you could simply select a time and make a request via the web page. All the details, once approved, get sync’ed to everyone’s calendar.

I’ve already used Tungle to schedule couple of meetings and I have to say that so far it was worked really well as most requests I get are ‘I’d like to meet when are you free’. So rather than bouncing requests back and forth via email email I can simply get the person to select a time in Tungle and it’ll end up in my calendar. All very nice and easy.

Once you have something like Tungle, then why would you need Exchange calendaring? I could simply use Outlook and sync my calendar with other members of my team no matter what calendar they use. I can let external parties view my availability directly from the web or their iPhone. I don’t you can do that as easily from Exchange.

Now I must admit I can’t see how these guys are going to make money (hello premium services I’ll bet) but this ‘proof of concept’ is certainly a great step. Of course there will always be concerns over privacy but these can be worked around (like only publishing a ‘business calendar’), however if the business value grossly outweighs this then it is less of a concern.

If you need a tool to allow people to schedule appointments with you and reduce the amount of time wasted finding a convenient free slot for everyone concerned then I’d suggest you take a look at Tungle. If you are interested to see how Tungle could be another nail in the coffin of the traditional Microsoft Exchange calendaring, I’d also recommend you take a look.

Regression to the mean

So it’s 2010 and plenty of people out there are making New Year’s resolutions. Personally I’m not one for picking a specific date to commence a goal, once I’ve set it I’d rather get going immediately. I do however appreciate that everyone is different and that the important thing is finding something that works for you. I will however point out why I believe New Year’s and most other resolutions fail miserably.

We are all typically the average (or mean) of our environment. If you want to reduce your golf handicap, you don’t play with people who you constantly beat, you play with people who are better than you. Even though you may lose, your game will improve because it is moving towards a higher average. The same theory applies in many other walks of life if you stop and think about it. Maybe the reason you aren’t a billionaire is that you don’t hang out with billionaires, instead you typically hang out with people in your own socio-economic demographic (i.e. those who make a similar amount if money as your do).

Now let’s say that you’ve made a resolution to change. Typically this change is quite different from your current situation (or mean/average position). One of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight. People who probably do very little exercise suddenly decide to do 10 times the exercise they would normally do. If they could maintain that 10 times regime then everything would be great however I’ll content that the chances of being able to maintain any deviation from the mean actually decrease the further the deviation is from the mean. In this case I would say that the chances of maintaining the 10 times resolution are no better than one in 10 i.e. 10%.

Instead, if they made a resolution to do just a little bit more exercise (at least initially), to twice their current average or mean say, I’d bet their chances of succeeding are now one in two i.e. 50%. The issue is that people fail to appreciate the inertia that the mean or average effect brings. In short, it is very difficult to change overnight, because what you are ultimately looking to achieve is an improvement of your mean performance, whatever that is and one sudden massive change doesn’t stand much chance.

If you plan to make a life changing resolution then to be successful you need to look at it like walking down a road as well. In such a situation you either walk down the left or the right hand sides. Walking down the centre is simply madness because sooner or later you will lose an argument with a vehicle. So before you start out you need to come to a decision of either walking on the left hand side (no I won’t do this) or the right hand side (yes, I will do this) but never down the middle of the road (maybe I’ll do this).

As simple and obvious as all this sounds most people typically over look these things when making their resolutions. They figure the more radical the change the better without understanding that the chances of success decrease with the distance from the current mean or average. True success lies in improving the mean value of your resolution and the easiest method achieving this is via small but regular increments. This regularity requires a discipline to make the desired change – that is, walking down the right hand side of the road rather than the middle.

How many road kills are we likely to see in the next few days as people walk down the centre of the road vacillating with all the best intentions of making a change but dooming themselves to failure because they failed to understand the overriding trend of the regression to the mean? It’s all simple math really.

Email newsletter coming soon

After some thought I have come to the conclusion that blogs are great but they are typically very unstructured. As an author what you see here is normally what grabs my fancy at any time. Many people reading this blog may wish to refer to items at a later stage but all that can get messed up in the whole RSS reader thing. Also, if you wanted to refer to an item that was mentioned some time ago it may be difficult to find given the fact that the topics aren’t particularly structured. It doesn’t make the most appropriate communication medium does it?

I’ve also decided that if I want to lift my profile I need to access people who don’t traditionally regularly read blogs (which is probably the majority of people in the real world isn’t it?). For these people the most effective method of communication is via email since they are more familiar with receiving and retaining it for future reference. From a marketing point of view it is also probably easier for them to forward email correspondence than to refer a contact to a blog.

With all this in mind I have decided from this month I’m going to start doing a regular email newsletter (probably every month at this stage). It will contain topics that I discuss here on my blog (but in a more structured manner), information about technology (especially cloud computing) and what’s happening with the CIAOPS (like my upcoming SharePoint webinar).

So what I’m initially asking for is that if you read this blog kinda regularly, if you could go and sign up for my newsletter at:

http://ciaops.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e641b9327b1cf4c45ad4e593f&id=c851ddf6cf

I would really appreciate it.

I’m looking to produce the first newsletter around the 15th of January so if you have any suggestions about what you’d like to see, what you think would interest people or how I should do this then I’d love to hear from you (director@ciaops.com). I can’t promise that I’ll get it right initially but I can promise that I’ll be looking at working constantly to improve what I offer based on feedback, so don’t be shy, let me know your thoughts.

Two more points

An interesting read over on Dave Overaton’s blog ”Server line-up for small businesses (and home) is increasing in options (or complexity for some) – SBS 2008, Home, Foundation, Windows Standard Server or BPOS – how do you choose?” where he attempts to discern the best option in IT for a small business.

Interestingly he rates a Windows PC network at the top and SBS and Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite last. I also especially liked these charts he has come up with:

and

Now I am generally in agreement with the conclusions that he reaches but I think that he has overlooked two important facts.

1. It is unlikely that a single IT solution is going to be adopted by most businesses these days.

As I noted in my recent blog post “Up in the sky”, in relation to cloud services at least

“data also shows that only 16% of those who have adopted cloud computing, or will within 12 months, will go solely with an off-premises model. But 50% of those respondents will go with a mixture on both on-premises and off premises.”

So what about the combination of a Windows PC network and BPOS? What about Windows Foundation server combined with BPOS? These are certainly going to provide far more options and flexibility than just the single product on its own.

2. Do not overlook the impact of Google Apps

If there ever an elephant in the room that most Microsoft types constantly neglect, ignore, dismiss over overlook it’s Google. Using their cloud based solution of Google Apps works extremely well for businesses in this target market (much like BPOS does). Again, it will provide its strongest appeal when used in conjunction with a Windows network or Windows Foundation server say.

I understand where Dave is coming from in his analysis but I’d like to contend that he is thinking about SMB customers in terms of the ‘old world’. Today’s SMB customers want the flexibility to work anywhere, with unlimited access to their data and the ability to share it will all the members of their team easily and quickly. They don’t want to shell out thousands of dollars for a server based solution (read SBS) when they can achieve something almost identical with online services on a per month per user basis. As I have said many time before, cloud computing not only changes the technology side of the argument but it also changes the economic argument for a customer. This economic model is far more important to a customer generally.

Dave has done a remarkable job with his analysis however he has perhaps unwittingly confirmed again, in my mind at least, the way technology people look at technology is not the way that customers do. Secondly, it highlights the fact that resellers face a herculean task trying to support the huge variety of possible solutions for a customer. That is sure fire way to burn people out in the end. Finally, I still see that online services, from Goggle, Microsoft or whomever, are going to have a major impact in the SMB space.