Sometimes “GapingVoid” just nails it !!!!
CNN do cloud …
The power of Apples brand ??
One-fifth of buyers interested in Apple’s unseen tablet.
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
In the land of the blind ….
…. the one eyed man is king
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
Sorry for the absence of posts recently ….
….. but the process of starting a new job has taken up a huge amount of time however I’m back now and will try to catch up on things.
Spotify for iPhone – it had to come but …
…. will it be crippled
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.
My favourite free apps
As the world of free applications continues to grow almost exponentially, I’m often asked what’s the best “free stuff” you can load up on a spanking new laptop. Well, as always, there’s no definitive list of what’s best because “best” is all down to personal opinion and preference. Well, not being one to sit on the fence, here’s a list of free stuff that sits on some of my machines
Spotify – I’ve blogged on this just about anywhere I can – if you’re into music you must have Spotify which is free so long as you’re happy to put up with a few adverts. Quite simply the best quality music streaming out there and simplicity itself
Mozilla Thunderbird – remarkably there are people out that that hate both Microsoft (so no Outlook) and Google (so no Gmail) – go figure. Anyway, if you fall into that camp then take a look a Thunderbird. Its had a checkered past but now seems to have a new lease of life with powerful tools and extensions from the Mozilla family
OpenOffice – another one for the anti MS/Google brigade but actually its a really powefull (and MS compatible) suite of office applications.
MediaCoder – a superb video encoding and transcoding application with specific solutions for all the popular device types that can be downloaded as separate modules. ave to be everywhere at once, and are happy to be signed in automatically by a 3rd party app, then this is for you.
Paint.Net / Inkscape – excellent Photoshop and Illustrator clones. They may not have all the features of their grown up cousins but they’re freeeeeeeee
Comodo AV/Firewall – the Comodo Internet Security suite was recommended to me by a colleague and it knocks the free competition as well as the more established brands for six. Simple to set up, ad free and low performance overhead.
Picassa – even the anti Google fraternity have to give Picassa a go. Simple way to organise, share and edit your photos
Slingplayer – I know its not exactly “free” because you need a slingbox back at home but the player is a fee download. Full control of my SKY+ and other attached media devices from anywhere in the world with a broadband connection – don’t leave home without it.
I’ll add more as I remember but that’ll do for starters
Anyone wanna recommend some others – go for it
Windows XP – the OS that refuses to die
This one might have slipped by a few folks – I missed it originally – but it seems that XP is set to remain the OS that just wont die
Microsoft announced yesterday that it would contnue to offer the option to downgrade from Vista or Windows 7 (…. though I’m not really sure why anyone would want do that ) for either the first 18 months after Windows 7 is launched or until its first service pack is released
As reported in trustedreivews.com ….. “Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate customers will have the option to downgrade to Windows XP Professional from PCs that ship within 18 months following the general availability of Windows 7 or until the release of a Windows 7 service pack, whichever is sooner, and if a service pack is developed,” confirmed a Microsoft company spokesperson to ComputerWorld.
So, who’s gonna be the first netbook manufacture to ditch XP in favour of Windows 7 and start the funeral procession ? Anyone ?? No ???
The pink paper to fold …
I wonder how many of my ex colleagues at the FT saw this headline and did a double take.
No its not the Financial Times that’s shutting down its print operations but the gay communities own national newspaper The Pink Paper. Despite the reportedly under exploited gay advertising market, the publication has become the latest victim of the economic downturn and decline in newspaper readership according to the “Old Pinkun”, the FT itself.
Tris Reid-Smith, Pink Paper editor, said the downturn – particularly in recruitment and housing advertising, as well as display adverts – had hit the paper. “We probably didn’t diversify our advertising base enough and we didn’t diversify our income streams away from advertising enough.
The Pink Paper title will remain in its online form
New iPhone – big disappointment
Am I the only one who was disappointed by Apples iPhone announcement yesterday ??
Look – don’t get me wrong – I really want to love the iPhone. It’s cool, its sexy, its hip – it’s got an app store with some really good stuff but why does it have to be such a crap phone. For months now I’ve been wanting to ditch my old Windows Mobile device but every time I asked whether the iPhone did something the answer was always “no” to even some of the most basic stuff. No cut and paste!! No sms forwarding !! No MMS!! No video!! No Voice-dial (kind of important for the Bluetooth brigade who want to stay legal when driving) etc etc …. Even the lowest cost HTC winmo devices could do that
So I waited with bated breath for the new iPhone announcement. Surely not only would all those deficiencies that Apple lovers happily overlook be rectified but we’d also see a new ground breaking device taking smart phones to the next level and throwing down the gauntlet to Google’s Android upstart.
Well actually no. What we got was the iPhone 3G S (…a sort of iPhone 3G with go faster stripes)
- something that’s a bit faster than something that went so slowly Apple had to put disclaimers on their TV ads
- something that has a bit more battery life than something that could barely last a day in average use
- and loads of so called “new features” like Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS* and a landscape keyboard alongside a new camera (that’s still underpowered compared to market norms), voice command (yep seen that before), a compass app (woohoo) etc
So no new form factor, no new call handling, no improved screen resolution (it stays at 320 x 480 pixels), no front mounted camera for video calls, no expansion slots or removable battery, no camera flash.
Saying all that, now that it’s the phone it should have been when it was launched, it’s actually quite an attractive proposition ….. until Google put android on some new hardware (the impending Samsung i7500 springs to mind) and slap down a new challenge.
Suddenly the mobile market is getting interesting again…. so what will I buy ?
The Accidental CIO 