Yesterday we had a great talk at the SDForum Business Intelligence SIG from Stephen Few called "Show me the Numbers". Stephen has created a career for himself teaching how to present business information in a way that is clear and understandable. And as he told us in the meeting he did this because he saw a crying need for better information presentation and nobody else was doing it.
One of the chief problems is that BI systems vendors compete by offering the most features and in the presentation space this is done by offering a wide variety of impressive 3-D graphs. We looked at and critiqued a number of graphs taken from vendors sales and education literature and we had a field day. For example, in one memorable graph, the months in the time dimension had been sorted in alphabetic order!
When it comes to selecting the type of graph to use, many people use "Eeny Meeny Miny Moe", or look through the list of graph types and select one because they have not used it for some time. I know that I have used this method in the past. Stephen has a well thought out methodology for designing information presentation and he started to go through it, although there was not enough time to go into depth. If you want to find out more you have to read the book.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Apple's ISA Shift
The most extraordinary news last week was the announcement that Apple would drop the Power chip and adopt the Intel chip and Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). There was a lot of speculation and disbelief before the event, the announcement in its own reality distortion field, and generally positive or at least understanding reportage afterwards.
First I should disclose a couple of personal connections with this event. The first one involves my mother-in-law (God bless her soul). Many years ago she wanted to buy a computer and hearing that Mac's were easier to use, bought one of the last 68000 based systems that Apple made. A couple of years later she got fed up with it because cruising the web had become impossible. Most complicated web pages took a very long time to render and many caused her system to crash. Of course there were no software upgrades to help her, so she went out and bought a PC which worked well for several years. This last January it broke down and she asked me for advice on getting it replaced. I suggested buying the Mac Mini that had just appeared and she bought one. Now I hear that it is obsolete, so is she going to be in the same position as she was with her last Mac? And this time its all my fault!
The second disclosure is that I worked for DEC, and was tangentially involved in their disastrous dithering with ISAs. Firstly they decided that the VAX ISA had no horsepower left so they adopted the MIPS chip for a short time and then completely changed tack to use their own internally developed Alpha chip and ISA. Old DEC hands may have thought that as they already had 12, 16, 18, 32 and 36 bit systems that throwing a couple more ISAs to the masses was business as usual. In practice customers took it as a sign that the company did not know what it was doing. DEC had always been deliberately run at the edge of control and when the customers deserted, DEC crumbled.
Back to the story. The most interesting commentary came from Cringely. I do not believe his major thesis, that this in an opening move in a merger between Intel and Apple. I do think that he is right on the money with his "Question 4: Why announce this chip swap a year before it will even begin for customers?" Who is going to buy a Mac now, knowing that it will be obsolete when Apple changes their ISA next year? Apple has basically destroyed the market for their major product for the next year.
There are a couple of possible reasons for making the announcement now. Firstly Apple may have decided that it was not going to keep it a secret and so the announcement was inevitable and put the best possible spin on a difficult situation. Alternatively, it could be hubris. Jobs has a history of being very successful and then getting caught up in his own reality distortion field to the extent that he blows it big time. His last big failure was Next which was colossal. This could be his next, we will see.
One other vector is Intel. Cringely is on the money in that they have a big stake in this. Microsoft just announced their xBox 360, which uses an IBM chip. If the xBox 360 turns out to be the home media center in disguise, Intel has potentially lost the consumer part of their franchise. In this context a link up with Apple who also have their eye on the home media center makes perfect sense.
First I should disclose a couple of personal connections with this event. The first one involves my mother-in-law (God bless her soul). Many years ago she wanted to buy a computer and hearing that Mac's were easier to use, bought one of the last 68000 based systems that Apple made. A couple of years later she got fed up with it because cruising the web had become impossible. Most complicated web pages took a very long time to render and many caused her system to crash. Of course there were no software upgrades to help her, so she went out and bought a PC which worked well for several years. This last January it broke down and she asked me for advice on getting it replaced. I suggested buying the Mac Mini that had just appeared and she bought one. Now I hear that it is obsolete, so is she going to be in the same position as she was with her last Mac? And this time its all my fault!
The second disclosure is that I worked for DEC, and was tangentially involved in their disastrous dithering with ISAs. Firstly they decided that the VAX ISA had no horsepower left so they adopted the MIPS chip for a short time and then completely changed tack to use their own internally developed Alpha chip and ISA. Old DEC hands may have thought that as they already had 12, 16, 18, 32 and 36 bit systems that throwing a couple more ISAs to the masses was business as usual. In practice customers took it as a sign that the company did not know what it was doing. DEC had always been deliberately run at the edge of control and when the customers deserted, DEC crumbled.
Back to the story. The most interesting commentary came from Cringely. I do not believe his major thesis, that this in an opening move in a merger between Intel and Apple. I do think that he is right on the money with his "Question 4: Why announce this chip swap a year before it will even begin for customers?" Who is going to buy a Mac now, knowing that it will be obsolete when Apple changes their ISA next year? Apple has basically destroyed the market for their major product for the next year.
There are a couple of possible reasons for making the announcement now. Firstly Apple may have decided that it was not going to keep it a secret and so the announcement was inevitable and put the best possible spin on a difficult situation. Alternatively, it could be hubris. Jobs has a history of being very successful and then getting caught up in his own reality distortion field to the extent that he blows it big time. His last big failure was Next which was colossal. This could be his next, we will see.
One other vector is Intel. Cringely is on the money in that they have a big stake in this. Microsoft just announced their xBox 360, which uses an IBM chip. If the xBox 360 turns out to be the home media center in disguise, Intel has potentially lost the consumer part of their franchise. In this context a link up with Apple who also have their eye on the home media center makes perfect sense.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
What the Dormouse Said
An extraordinary event at the PARC last night. The SDForum Distinguished Speaker Series went out with a bang as John Markoff spoke about his new book "What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry". The truly remarkable thing about the night was the audience, as many of the people featured in the book were in the room.
Sandy Rockowitz introduced several audience members. The names I recall are Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, Butler Lampson and Adele Goldberg. Sandy did not introduce everyone and I did not catch all their names, so this is a partial list of a partial list, but it gives a glimpse of who was in the room.
John Markoff presented his thesis. The conventional story of Personal Computers is a story about Xerox PARC and the two Steves. The real story goes back much further to the 1960s and involved Doug Engelbart, John McCarthy, LSD, and only later Stewart Brand, the Homebrew Computer Club, and Stanford institutions like Kepplers bookstore around which the grateful Dead also formed.
At the meeting several people denied their personal involvement with drugs. I have not read the book so I do not know whether drugs really played a part or whether they are there promote book sales. I will let you know my opinion when I have finished it.
Sandy Rockowitz introduced several audience members. The names I recall are Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, Butler Lampson and Adele Goldberg. Sandy did not introduce everyone and I did not catch all their names, so this is a partial list of a partial list, but it gives a glimpse of who was in the room.
John Markoff presented his thesis. The conventional story of Personal Computers is a story about Xerox PARC and the two Steves. The real story goes back much further to the 1960s and involved Doug Engelbart, John McCarthy, LSD, and only later Stewart Brand, the Homebrew Computer Club, and Stanford institutions like Kepplers bookstore around which the grateful Dead also formed.
At the meeting several people denied their personal involvement with drugs. I have not read the book so I do not know whether drugs really played a part or whether they are there promote book sales. I will let you know my opinion when I have finished it.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Spom?
I was using Google to do some research at work the other day, and I noticed that whatever I searched for I got lots of useless results from the likes of eopinions.com and bizrate.com. In fact, for some searches, the pollution of off-topic search sites was so high that I found nothing useful in the first few pages of search.
Personally, I have found sites like eopinions.com and bizrate.com to be completely worthless, even when I am looking to buy something. Whatever I am looking for they seem to offer something slightly different and whatever they present is jumbled and difficult to comprehend. The Google sponsored links are on target, easy to digest and much more likely to be useful than any of these sites.
The problem is that the usefulness of internet search is being destroyed by these sites. So can we do about it? The first step in any campaign is to name the enemy. I propose we call it Spom. We have Spam polluting our email and Spim polluting instant messaging, so Spom polluting searches seems to fit. We could even explain it by saying that SPOM is the contraction of Search POlution Menace. Well it is a bit forced, but it will do. Finally Spom is so far unused (mostly).
Personally, I have found sites like eopinions.com and bizrate.com to be completely worthless, even when I am looking to buy something. Whatever I am looking for they seem to offer something slightly different and whatever they present is jumbled and difficult to comprehend. The Google sponsored links are on target, easy to digest and much more likely to be useful than any of these sites.
The problem is that the usefulness of internet search is being destroyed by these sites. So can we do about it? The first step in any campaign is to name the enemy. I propose we call it Spom. We have Spam polluting our email and Spim polluting instant messaging, so Spom polluting searches seems to fit. We could even explain it by saying that SPOM is the contraction of Search POlution Menace. Well it is a bit forced, but it will do. Finally Spom is so far unused (mostly).
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Collaborative Filtering Hell
I was at Amazon.com getting some stuff and clicked on "Richard's Store" tab which of course led me to their "Recommended For You" page. Suddenly I was lost in collaborative filtering hell. All I could find was stuff that I already had or that I had already considered and rejected. I could not find anything that interested me in the slighest and the further I looked the worse it got. Have you ever been lost in a maze of twisty little web pages with no idea of how to get out? The only cure was to exit completely and come back in through the front door.
I will never visit my personal store again!
I will never visit my personal store again!
Friday, May 13, 2005
Interesting Times
Wow, things are getting hot. So many things happened this week. Microsoft announced the new xBox home media center. Yahoo came out with their Napster/iTunes killing music service. Google is up to something that is not fully revealed yet. Gates dissed the iPod, claiming that the converged cell phone, camera, music player, PDA will be Microsoft powered. Could things get more interesting?
Cringely has a great column that covers the first three and some Apple rumors. I am surprised that Microsoft happened to announce a double pronged attack on the home PC and the pocketable information appliance in the same week.
After writing that all information task could be done by a single Information Appliance, I was going to write about how we really need three different types of information appliance with different form factors. There is the information appliance with a 42" or larger screen that is mostly for passive shared use. Next there is the personal information appliance with a 14" or larger screen for information intensive tasks like editing and composing media and emails, shopping and bookkeeping. Finally, there is the pocketable information appliance is small enough to be taken everywhere, even the bathroom.
Microsoft won the battle for the middle one and has been going after the other two for some time. Will they have more luck this time? We will just have to wait and see.
Cringely has a great column that covers the first three and some Apple rumors. I am surprised that Microsoft happened to announce a double pronged attack on the home PC and the pocketable information appliance in the same week.
After writing that all information task could be done by a single Information Appliance, I was going to write about how we really need three different types of information appliance with different form factors. There is the information appliance with a 42" or larger screen that is mostly for passive shared use. Next there is the personal information appliance with a 14" or larger screen for information intensive tasks like editing and composing media and emails, shopping and bookkeeping. Finally, there is the pocketable information appliance is small enough to be taken everywhere, even the bathroom.
Microsoft won the battle for the middle one and has been going after the other two for some time. Will they have more luck this time? We will just have to wait and see.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
BlueRoads
While we are on the subject of Software as a Service (SaaS), I almost forgot to mention that last month the Business Intelligence SIG heard a entrancing presentation from Axel Schultze, CEO of BlueRoads Corporation.
BlueRoads is a software service that does Partner Relationship Management (PRM). Basically they provide a set of applications that allows a company to interact with its channel partners. Unlike CRM which a company usually imposes on their salesforce, the BlueRoads model is that they are an intermediary between the business and the channel partner. To make it work, BlueRoads creates applications that provide value to both the channel partner, so that they use it, and to the company, so that they pay BlueRoads.
If BlueRoads can pull it off, they have something wonderful. While there are other companies in the PRM space, none of them have anything like the BlueRoads SaaS business model. They have both viral marketing and the network effect in their favor. BlueRoads is currently concentrating on high tech where channel sales are growing to be a larger proportion of total sales and the whole market is growing., so they are in a growing segment of a growing market.
And all they have to do is pull it off!
BlueRoads is a software service that does Partner Relationship Management (PRM). Basically they provide a set of applications that allows a company to interact with its channel partners. Unlike CRM which a company usually imposes on their salesforce, the BlueRoads model is that they are an intermediary between the business and the channel partner. To make it work, BlueRoads creates applications that provide value to both the channel partner, so that they use it, and to the company, so that they pay BlueRoads.
If BlueRoads can pull it off, they have something wonderful. While there are other companies in the PRM space, none of them have anything like the BlueRoads SaaS business model. They have both viral marketing and the network effect in their favor. BlueRoads is currently concentrating on high tech where channel sales are growing to be a larger proportion of total sales and the whole market is growing., so they are in a growing segment of a growing market.
And all they have to do is pull it off!
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Software as a Service
The SDForum has a new SIG called Software as a Service (or SaaS for short) and they had their first meeting tonight. If you did not blink at the height of the boom, you may have seen the shortest lived SDForum SIG, the ASP SIG that had a life of less than a year. Now software as a service is back, and this time it is here to stay.
Tonight's presentation was given by two analysts from IDC, a market research company. I believe that the presentation is their standard presentation that they give when they are touting for business, however it did contain a lot of interesting stuff. As a software developer, a number of things stood out.
Packaged software offers a bad user experience. The software company creates a product which they throw over the wall to the customer. The customer implements it with little or no help and with great difficulty. At the same time the software company has little idea what the customer is doing with the product to help them plan features for the next release. On the other hand, software as a service is implemented by the software company who have a motive for helping the customer make the best use of the software. As the software is run by the software company, it can easily find out how the software is being used to help the customer make the best use of the software and to understand how to enhance it.
Large and medium sized companies tend to use software as a service to enhance existing applications, while smaller companies use it more to replace existing applications. In all sized companies the number of new applications using software as a service is small. In fact the analysts seemed optimistic that software as a service would increase the size of the software market. (On the other hand I have never met an analyst with a pessimistic market projection.)
The most common reason for switching to software as a service is the prospect of having to upgrade an existing software package. I am sure that having to upgrade is a major reason for changing to a new software implementation anyway, however software as a service does not suffer from the upgrade problem in the same was as packaged software does, as the upgrade is done by the software provider.
Tonight's presentation was given by two analysts from IDC, a market research company. I believe that the presentation is their standard presentation that they give when they are touting for business, however it did contain a lot of interesting stuff. As a software developer, a number of things stood out.
Packaged software offers a bad user experience. The software company creates a product which they throw over the wall to the customer. The customer implements it with little or no help and with great difficulty. At the same time the software company has little idea what the customer is doing with the product to help them plan features for the next release. On the other hand, software as a service is implemented by the software company who have a motive for helping the customer make the best use of the software. As the software is run by the software company, it can easily find out how the software is being used to help the customer make the best use of the software and to understand how to enhance it.
Large and medium sized companies tend to use software as a service to enhance existing applications, while smaller companies use it more to replace existing applications. In all sized companies the number of new applications using software as a service is small. In fact the analysts seemed optimistic that software as a service would increase the size of the software market. (On the other hand I have never met an analyst with a pessimistic market projection.)
The most common reason for switching to software as a service is the prospect of having to upgrade an existing software package. I am sure that having to upgrade is a major reason for changing to a new software implementation anyway, however software as a service does not suffer from the upgrade problem in the same was as packaged software does, as the upgrade is done by the software provider.
Monday, May 02, 2005
A Colleague Moves On
It is always sad when someone in your circle moves on, at the same time is always encouraging when someone in your circle moves on to bigger and better things. Alex Chan has done a multitude of things and touched many people since he came to Silicon Valley: co-chaired the Multimodal SIG and done numerous other things for the SDForum, President of the Chinese Software Professionals Association, founder and leader of Silicon Valley HUB, as well as a demanding day job at Cisco Systems. Now he is moving to China to an important research post in Shanghai.
Alex, we are sorry to see you go and happy for your new position. Bon chance!
Alex, we are sorry to see you go and happy for your new position. Bon chance!
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Event Driven Mobile Applications
This month the SDForum Software Architecture and Modeling SIG heard about a real application for mobile information technology. The talk was called "Worlds collide: when mobile, real-time requirements meet fragmented legacy systems: Lessons learned in providing real-time patient information to emergency room physicians."
The point of the talk was that with mobile applications (as with most other applications) , the important problems turn out to be different that the problem anticipated by the developers when they start the project. In particular the speakers proposed that an emergency room mobile information system needs to be situationally aware so that it helps the doctor in a high pressure and demanding environment rather then get in the way.
The thing that I took away from the talk is a desire to give the doctor more of an event driven life. When a patient comes to an emergency room, the hospital or medical organization may already have a lot of information about the patient. While there, the doctor may order several tests and the results of these tests is further information about the patient. All of this information can be made available on a portable device.
A problem is that the patient information may not be available immediately and the results of tests dribble back. Thus the doctor is always polling to see whether they have enough information to go back to the patient and make a further assessment or order a treatment. As the doctor is responsible for several patients, the doctor has several queues of events to poll.
When implemented with conventional technology, each patient has a box. Paper with test results arrive and are put in the box. The doctor is constantly looking through boxes to see what new results have arrived since they last looked.
The mobile application uses an iPAQ type PDA with a fingerprint reader for easy authentication. The primary screen shows a list of patients with a simple traffic light scorecard of the types of tests that have been ordered and whether the results are available. The doctor still has to look at the screen and understand what has changed, however they have a single screen with the information about what they can do next.
Mobile applications are going to become increasingly important and this presentation convinced me that they are not just desktop or even laptop applications with a small screen. Mobile applications need to be more situationally aware to overcome the constraints of the UI. At the same time done properly they can remove the need to poll and allow us to lead the event driven life.
The point of the talk was that with mobile applications (as with most other applications) , the important problems turn out to be different that the problem anticipated by the developers when they start the project. In particular the speakers proposed that an emergency room mobile information system needs to be situationally aware so that it helps the doctor in a high pressure and demanding environment rather then get in the way.
The thing that I took away from the talk is a desire to give the doctor more of an event driven life. When a patient comes to an emergency room, the hospital or medical organization may already have a lot of information about the patient. While there, the doctor may order several tests and the results of these tests is further information about the patient. All of this information can be made available on a portable device.
A problem is that the patient information may not be available immediately and the results of tests dribble back. Thus the doctor is always polling to see whether they have enough information to go back to the patient and make a further assessment or order a treatment. As the doctor is responsible for several patients, the doctor has several queues of events to poll.
When implemented with conventional technology, each patient has a box. Paper with test results arrive and are put in the box. The doctor is constantly looking through boxes to see what new results have arrived since they last looked.
The mobile application uses an iPAQ type PDA with a fingerprint reader for easy authentication. The primary screen shows a list of patients with a simple traffic light scorecard of the types of tests that have been ordered and whether the results are available. The doctor still has to look at the screen and understand what has changed, however they have a single screen with the information about what they can do next.
Mobile applications are going to become increasingly important and this presentation convinced me that they are not just desktop or even laptop applications with a small screen. Mobile applications need to be more situationally aware to overcome the constraints of the UI. At the same time done properly they can remove the need to poll and allow us to lead the event driven life.
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