Steven Zolman

Sep. 18,2013

You've all heard that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is ‘retiring’ within the next 12 months. Many are now speculating on who will be the new CEO. Here is my short-list in order of probability: Bill Gates. Gates is still young, he's still the biggest shareholder of Microsoft, and much like when former Vice-President Dick Cheney led the VP search for former President George W. Bush, he may just find that there's no one better than him for the job. Tony Bates. Bates is the former CEO of Skype, an $8.5 billion acquisition for Microsoft, and has the consumer driven product experience to transform Microsoft into a commercialized mobile powerhouse ...

Steven Zolman

Jul. 12,2013

Your strategic supplier's performance no longer meets your company's requirements. Your contractual agreements don't offer the levers you need to govern organizational value. The value of your supplier investments no longer align to the costs you are being charged. You've tried to escalate the situation and resolve these issues to no end; your supplier relationship is broken. Hey -- it happens. Worse yet, the new class of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and cloud computing suppliers have shifted the line of supplier accountability deeper into your supply chain, putting more at stake, and making it more difficult to effectively manage supplier ...

Eric Guyer

Jul. 12,2013

As apocalyptic as that headline may sound, pigs aren't readying their flight gear just yet. Rather, Oracle and Microsoft simply agree that the cloud can save you money on hardware and data-center operations. Unfortunately, they also agree that those savings should go directly into their pockets at the same offensively high rate margins as always. In fact, depending on your definition of cloud, neither Oracle nor Microsoft is in the cloud business whatsoever and all the announcements in the world mean nothing. Even Oracle’s own cloud offering is the 15 year-old On Demand service (out of Austin, TX) re-marketed in fashionable terminology. It’s ...

Steven Zolman

Jun. 18,2013

The proliferation of Cloud Computing and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) providers, and the promise these technologies offer: (i) low-cost solutions, (ii) quick and easy deployments, (iii) high levels of user adoption, (iv) device and access and platform homogeneity, (v) elastic scalable capacity, (vi) subscription based pricing, and (vii) plug-and-play interoperability, has certainly led clients to unprecedented levels of adoption of these technologies. And while the “Promise of Cloud Largely Remains Unfulfilled,” this hasn't seemed to materially slow this pace of adoption. As a result, we think it’s important that our clients get this right. ...

Dave Young

Jun. 18,2013

In our November 2012 issue of The Net Effect, we published a White Paper titled “Top 10 Reasons Why Clients Spend WAY TOO MUCH...For Telecommunications”. This is the fourth in a series of blog entries that will explore each of these topics in more detail, moving on to #7 Inefficient Wireless Rate Plan Management. Each employee mobile wireless subscriber on a corporate agreement is associated with one or more rate plans that specify the number of voice, data and texting limits. In addition some plans single out email, video and image transmissions, as well as a myriad of other plans for international travel and out-calling from domestic to ...

Eric Guyer

May. 14,2013

If you find yourself paying support on Oracle software that is no longer deployed, then this blog is for you. (The remaining three people may want to continue reading regardless since shelfware is a common affliction that may or may not want to be avoided.) It’s not only common, but also causes resentment among IT executives keen on cutting costs. It’s worth mentioning Oracle’s reasoning. When you license software, Oracle extends a discount commensurate with volume. Years later, when you seek to eliminate shelfware from the associated renewal, Oracle forfeits the original discount via re-pricing. The pertinent policy language is publicly ...

Steven Zolman

May. 14,2013

In a previous blog post, I took great pains at articulating my 10 Reasons Why Ginni Rometty would fail as IBM's new CEO. In the post, I mentioned the poisonous sales culture (you live by the sword, you die by the sword), which is at the center (of blame) for this and last quarter's missed performance targets. Another concern was the 'garage sale' of business units that would inevitably have to come if IBM were to meet its targets. As we have recently learned, IBM appears to be in the process of selling its server business to Lenovo, and it has long been rumored to be preparing its services business for sale as well. It seems Ginni may be ...

Dave Young

May. 14,2013

Recounting the news earlier this year out of West Virginia where state auditors are accusing Cisco of selling routers that are not needed or router models that are way overkill for the purpose, got me thinking about the approach Cisco and many of its peers in the IT industry take to selling technology to their customers. Simply put, IT related acquisitions, be it hardware, software or services, are fraught with a cartel mentality between the OEM, reseller and the enterprise IT organization that often result in purchasing more than needed or acquiring advanced functionality without a purpose. The IT organization shares some of this blame with ...

Steven Zolman

Apr. 16,2013

With Oracle's fiscal year end fast approaching this May, many of our clients are considering making Oracle licensing purchases. One of the most common questions we get is, "What type of license should I buy?" Just the fact that clients are asking us these questions demonstrates great progress over the last 10 years. It illustrates that savvy clients know that there can be very significant economic disparities between license types, with literally no loss at all of any business value achieved. In fact, it's the exact same source code. To illustrate this point, consider one client who is considering User Licenses vs. Processor licenses. This ...

Eric Guyer

Apr. 15,2013

Oracle’s recent third quarter earnings miss was a not-so-subtle reminder of its software maintenance based profit model and tyrannical leadership style. We should not be surprised that software support continues to grow. Customers are effectively forced to renew while Oracle cranks the dial by 4% each year. As for leadership, Safra, Mark and Larry seem to believe that their better-than-ever products would sell themselves if sales would just bother to walk past the fax machine for purchase orders. In both cases, there are real issues to consider, especially when HP and Dell are proving that IT bellwethers can falter. First, Oracle’s ...