News and Analysis to 15th January 2004
Larry prepares for end game
It looks like the Oracle founder is preparing for his exit
by topping and tailing himself with management muscle. At the top he has ceded
the chairman’s role to his CFO Jeff Henley, leaving Larry Ellison with the CEO
slot, and tremendous influence over his new boss. At the tail he has appointed
two vice presidents who will report to him. Larry’s succession plan seems to
have a Darwinian element to it. One suspects that the vice presidents will be
invited to slug it out, the victor taking the reins from Larry.
Everybody go hotel motel holiday
inn…….say what
To the tune of No.1 hit Good Times by Chic, these words
conjure up memories of late seventies hip hop. Trust me on this. To the UK
travel etailer Lastminute.com these words were no doubt reverberating around
the boardroom prior to their recent acquisition of First Option, an offline
hotel-booking agency. With 71 locations covering railway stations and airports,
this will extend Lastminute’s offline presence. Impressively they will operate
24 x7, with an automated service in place when the desk is unmanned.
Windows 98 – Stay of execution
Microsoft’s ‘Internet friendly’ operating system was due for
lethal injection tomorrow, along with its successor Windows ME. Most likely as
a result of the suffering caused to users through what can only be described as
device-driver abuse. But it appears that there are sufficient customers using
these operating systems for Microsoft to revise the support termination date to
June 30th 2006.
CRM blunder?
Enterprise applications vendor PeopleSoft is currently going
through the neurosurgical process of grafting on recently acquired rival JD
Edwards. The most delicate part of the operation is the JDE customer base
transplant. So it is surprising that PeopleSoft has decided not to support the
conferences of JDE’s major user group Quest Direct. This will send out a big
signal that the future of the JD Edwards product line is at best uncertain,
which in turn could cause a proportion of JDE’s 150,000 user base to similarly
behave unpredictably.
School is rubbish
IT industry
leaders in the US have assembled to make recommendation that will help the US
remain competitive. The likes of Carly Fiorina of HP and Craig Barratt of Intel
will descend on Washington to propose that the education system needs
overhauling to fend off the growing threat from emerging nations. They will
also recommend that there needs to be tax credits on research and development
and that more investment is required in infrastructure. Having raised the
spectre of off-shoring, the IT leaders are keen not to be isolationist and have
cited figures to show that utilising foreign labour actually raises the
standard of living for US workers.
Linux kills
Microsoft sees Linux as a threat. It also recognises the
almost ‘romantic’ following it has, and has thus decided to dampen this ardour
by launching a ‘fact-based’ advertising campaign that exposes Linux for what it
really is. Emphasis will be placed on the fact that a Linux based relationship
requires much higher maintenance than a Windows one. It is unlikely to dwell on
the importance of reliability in a relationship.
Global warning
We live in cost conscious times. Customers will pursue
country’s that can deliver and deliver cheap. This is a reality of the global
marketplace. India’s IT minister recently called on 30 Asian IT ministers to
unite and tackle the negative sentiment expressed by Western politicians
towards off-shoring. Western IT departments will need to get out their
spreadsheets and quantify their value in Board–friendly terms (The Board’s
vocabulary in full - shareholder value, risk management and governance) or lie
down and let nature take its course.
Test Yourself?
Auridian Consulting
helps its clients make business sense of IT, specifically the buzzwords,
issues, trends and opportunities. Try this multiple-choice exercise:
Scoring:
+2 points for every correct answer and –3 for every wrong one.
q
Maximum score 8
q
Minimum score –24
Can you get a positive score?
Identify which of the following statements are correct:
RFID
A – Is a type of
aphid
B – Will greatly
enhance the supply chain
C – Will help
Doctors establish the source of food-related illnesses
D – Will require
shoppers to carry portable transistor radios.
VoIP
A – Enables voice
traffic to be directed across data networks
B – Will potentially
enable long distance phone calls to be made at local rates
C – Requires users
to have a phone that’s shaped like a laptop
D – Will be rejected
by the major telcos.
Wi-Fi
A – Is a short-range
wireless networking technology
B – It requires home
users to have a device shaped like a 1970’s style wooden stereogram unit
C – Is a clever play
on the term Sci-Fi
D – Often associated
with the term heatspot.
Click here to find out how you got on.
