My point was that in the rush to get the next great Web2.0/Social Networking/collaborative toy out into the market, developers were just copying each other and no one was being really innovative. Rather than celebrating the fact that one could be genuinely different, the prevailing view seemed to be that if you simply just throw more and more familiar stuff into into the same pot then the customers will be happy. Its the equivalent of the one stop shop…. the BlueWater approach to development. Just put as much as you can in one place and then the punter doesn’t need to think – they can just do. So as a result; Facebook updates Twitter which can update Facebook and set your status automatically in Linkedin which can pass the information to Plaxo and so on. Tweetdeck can be a browser and can now do embedded Picasa and YouTube, Disgby can look like Google Talk but actually update everything – aggghhhh !!!

Well, here we are almost 12 months on and its no better – infact to my eyes its getting worse…. and the most recent offender in the tastes like chicken stakes is Google Buzz. Who in the name of all thats good and true though we needed yet another social networking tool and then, worse still, who thought it would be a bright idea to embed it in a really good email client. Jeez, it must have been ‘Chicken Tonight’ over in Mountain View when they came up with Buzz. Now I don’t intend to go into the well documented privacy concerns here – you can google them – but just pause for a minute on the approach. Did we really need another status setting tool ? Did we really want to grow our already impossibly large contact lists again ? Did we really want our finely tuned and pimped Gmail client messed up with yet more notifications ?? ….. and wouldn’t an add on to Gtalk been just as useful (sic) ?

To my eyes, and granted they’re getting on in years now, it seems that there’s no value in being innovative. First mover advantage has all but disappeared and now we can all be fast followers – even Google – by just incrementing what already exists. Call me an old cynic but everything really is starting to taste like chicken

What d’ya think ?

This has got to have been the most hyped piece of technology in recent years. Back in September I posted an article from AppleInsider saying that “despite the fact that no one has seen it, a new survey says that 21 percent of buyers are interested in purchasing an Apple tablet device” and it seems they were spot on.

At the launch even yesterday comments ranged from the typical Apple lovers superlatives through to “it’s just an iPhone with a big screen”. Clearly both points of view are wrong and based on little actual data or experience so here’ what we know

Hardware

• Apple A4 1GHz chipset (…. wow Apple are now in the chip business !!)
• 9.7in LED backlit 1024 x 768 pixel, multi-touch display
• Dimensions of  – 242.8 x 189.7 x 13.4mm and weighing about 700g
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and an optional 3G add on
• 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities
• “Up to” 10 hours battery life, one month on standby
• Accelerometer, digital compass, speaker, mic, dock connector, 3.5mm jack

Software

• Modified variation of the iPhone OS and “almost all” iPhone apps compatible with the iPad
• Contacts, email, music, video and photo iTunes synchronisation
• HD capable (720p) video playback
• New iBook (eBook) store  with publishers like Simon and Schuster, Penguin etc already signed up
• iWorks productivity software available at an additional cost of $9.99 with word processing, spreadsheet and powerpoint functionality

… and most importantly it costs $499 (£310) for the entry level 16GB model without 3G, $599 for 32Gb and $699 for 64GB with a 3G facility costing an additional $130 extra – NOTE that it will use SIM Unlocked but use a mini SIM (how many of you have one of those)

As the FT put it “Arriving with few new content deals despite months of heavy hype, the half-inch thick gadget, which looks like a giant iPhone, met with mixed reviews”. Hardly a revolution ??

Trustedreviews.com went a bit further saying “For a product so massively hyped I think it is fair to say Apple certainly hasn’t managed the Wow Factor like it did with the launch of the original iPhone. The iPad is certainly a competent product, but one that with its strong iPhone roots lies more closely to smartbooks than netbooks and keeps in place the typical fenced gate Apple likes to enforce about how its customers use its products.”

In fact, most analysts have focussed on the negatives – particularly the Guardian however to do this is missing the point. A colleague of mine once told an audience of CIOs and technology leaders that great marketing trumps great technology every time …. and he was right !

• Better data collection and retrieval systems… to directly drive business growth and find more savings as well as new business opportunities’.”
• Home and remote working… to get more performance from their existing workforce whilst reducing travel overheads at a time when unemployment is on the rise.
• Mobile commerce… CEO’s are starting to believe that, after 10yrs of hype, this might just be ready for prime time
• Business intelligence… track and responding to customer behaviour – if you’re not doing it then you competitors sure are and implied customer loyalty is long gone.
• E-discovery systems …. “In difficult economic times, legal challenges tend to increase” … so how good are your retrieval and analytical systems ?

Now clearly I’m not saying that cloud computing, virtualization, web 2.0 > enterprise 2.0 et al don’t have a part to play in many of these priorities but shouldn’t we be focussing on the problems – as articulated by our most important customers – rather than the technologies and their somewhat abstract labels

JMHO

The full article is here - enjoy

According to AppleInsider -  in a survey of more than 3000 people (presumably all Apple owners ??), over a fifth said they were interested in Apple’s long-rumored tablet device. That’s more than the 9 percent that said they were interested in the original iPhone back in April 2007.

The survey also assumed that the product would be priced between $500 and $700 for its question.

So something no-one has seen, with dimensions and functionality that no one can describe, is wanted by over 20% of potential buyers !! I bow to the friend how told me that great marketing trumps great technology every time – he was so right

So goes the famous saying and its particularly appropriate when it comes to IT outsourcing.

According to a report from Warwick Business School for IT Services firm Cognizant, the majority of CIO’s AND CFO’ s interviewed claimed that they lacked the tools and methods to effectively measure business value and the return on investment (RoI) from outsourcing activities despite spending between $5m and $100m (£3m and £61m) each year on such initiatives.

The old adages of “never outsource simply for cost”, “never outsource a problem” and “never outsource something you cant manage and measure yourself” have never been more true and ignoring these fundementals has lead to a well trodden path of outsourcing disasters. With that in mind, the finding from this report must raise surely some eyebrows. Our industry has been at this for almost a decade now  so shouldn’t we be alarmed that this report concludes that management and measurement disciplines remains so vague ?.

One thing is certain, the outsourcers know how to make money and how to measure ROI on their side so a customer has to line up comparable (or better)  skills and expertise on their side if they are going to see the business benefits and make the relationship work.

As usual, JMHO so all comments welcome

Spotify have confirmed their iPhone application and a short video demo is sitting on my favourite trusted resource TrustedReviews.

With offine modes, sharing facility (with other Spotify users) and multi device sync this looks a really interesting development in the current streaming vs downloading debate. It also now creates a reason for you to pay for the premium spotify service as the iPhone app will only be available to premium subscribers.

However the big issue here is whether those nice folks at Cupertino will certify it and more importantly ever allow it to run over HSDPA/3G connections. What ??  Simply protecting their iTunes franchise in the face of competition from the streaming market ?? Surely not  ??

Lets wait and see.