I received an interesting email the other day.  The link was to a Microsoft article announcing an upcoming release of a ‘Cloud Appliance’.  I spoke about how great this would be for the world of computing in a blog post back in February 2009.  I forwarded the article to the folks I work with in Server/Network and they lost their minds.  A system fully capable of abstracting hardware and software!

As someone who works in a heavily regulated industry, and rightfully so in my opinion, this is the best thing to come along since virtualization.  There is no one in my industry that doesn’t recognize the benefits of a cloud based architecture, but new regulations in Healthcare now dictate jail time for certain violations.  I’m less willing to take advantage of the architectural benefits and cost savings if I know there is a real risk of visiting a federal institution of time outs.  Long story short, I’m excited to see Microsoft enter this space. 

More from InformationWeek…

More for Microsoft’s Website…

I came across this great presentation today talking about the challenges of Social Networking and what the next generation might look like.  The presentation is by a guy named Paul Adams who is a UX researcher at Google.

I think the recent comments by Steve Jobs have been well documented.  I don’t discount his evaluation of Flash.  It’s his opinion and it’s his company.  He should be able to do what he wants.  However, Job’s is putting a lot of money on one factor he has no control over.  Developers.  Dare I say that Steve Ballmer was right?  It’s Developer, Developers, Developers!

As a technologist I think it’s absolutely absurd to say that the adoption rate of HTML will be non-existent.  I wrote a Blog post back in January 2009 arguing that Silverlight would be adopted in spite of Flash.  I still feel the same holds true for HTML 5.  If you make an application ‘cool’ enough they will come.  I think that HTML 5 has real promise. 

The problem will be the adoption rate by developers.  Apple does not have enough market share to convince me to convert to HTML 5.  That doesn’t mean that it will not.  It just means that in the foreseeable future I have no plans to replace my Silverlight or Flash plugins by implementing HTML 5.  Completing an asp.net site will pretty much cost me as much as doing a Silverlight based site.  In fact, my UX guys will probably use Adobe Photoshop to do most of the images so including Flash probably won’t be that much either!

Secondly, I would argue that Apple is approaching a new phase in its life as a product company.  For the longest time Apple has enjoyed a dedicated following, otherwise known as ‘Fanboys’.  Remember your old art teacher in grade school with the Mac?  I bet he/she is still a rabid Mac fan.   Unfortunately Apple is beginning to appeal to the masses.  They are no longer a niche player in the world of computing.  I know countless Apple converts who until recently could only brag about the sleekness of Apple products.   Now  they complain about compatibility, battery life and gasp!, crashes and viruses. 

The point is that Apple will eventually need to cater to these new expectations and user base.  Even if only some of them.  They have a taste of success and they are going to want to keep it, if not for the sake of their shareholders.  At some point they may have to, and should, listen to their customer needs.  Including the support for Flash and Silverlight might be one of the many things they need to do.  It will be the converts that lead the growth for Apple not the current base of dedicated art teachers!

I’ve been busy attending some conferences lately where I’ve had the chance to speak with IT pros across several industries.  What I found most interesting is that even amongst this diverse group there seems to be some common themes of interest and focus.  Sure, we spoke about cloud computing and virtualization, but at a higher level there were two underlying drivers to their strategies.

• There are no longer any secrets in Technology.
• Know the true value of IT.

There are no longer any secrets in Technology

This statement sounds odd at first.  However, when you really think about it there are none.  Your competitors have access to the same vendors and technology that you do.   How they effectively put them together might be a secret, but at the end of the day the access is the same. 

So what can you do to compete?  Speed.  How fast can you deliver to the market?  To put the pace of technology in prospective please play the video below:

The video is a few years old, but you get the trend.  Speed is of the essence.  So what do you need to do to be in a position to out ‘speed’ your competition?  Simplify your processes and your architecture.  These are perhaps two of the most taxing aspects of software development.  If you are not concentrating on streamlining these you’re probably not going to out flank the next ‘startup’ looking to capture your customer base.

Know the true value of IT

This one probably hits home to most IT folks who work in corporations.  You need to constantly justify your existence because someone will inevitably ask; What value does IT provide?  I think as a profession we commonly whip out ROI calculations on the projects we’ve completed or SLA’s that demonstrate our ability to meet some number that the business could ultimately care less about (show them that you have a 4 hour window when email goes out and see the reaction).  I hate to break it to you.  Meeting SLA’s and calculating ROI’s is not IT’s value prop.

IT’s value to the business is as an exponential transformational force that underpins all business activities.   It sounds a bit ‘Star Wars’, but let me prove it to you.

If you’re one of the fortunate souls that regularly has to calculate ROI’s for proposed projects you need to ask yourself the following question.  Three years from now will they come back and check to see if the ROI is realized?  If so who gets fired if it’s not?  I venture to guess that the answer for 99% of people is no, and no one.  Need more? Have you ever calculated that a new piece of software will automate X number of headcount?  When have you ever seen that headcount reduced or reassigned after delivery?  No, they just get to do more of the same thing, just more efficiently!

What you need to be looking at is how can you dramatically transform a market or a business process to give your company a competitive edge!  It sounds dramatic, but it’s really very simple. For example:  Why make the ‘order’ entry simpler so people can do more of it?  Why not focus on automation so you can reduce headcount and improve accuracy? 

I know what your thinking.  That should go into the ROI calculation for sure.  And you are correct.  However that is often what I see go wrong.  Too many times business leaders ask to make something simpler or ‘shinier’.  Our value as IT professionals is helping them realize exponential transformations by pointing out opportunities that they might not even think of.  That is the true value of IT!

Anyone who writes code is always interested in the capacity (or load) that their system can handle.  For some, including this author, it’s a matter of pride and bragging rights.  However, there is a different type of capacity that is normally overlooked.  When was the last time you estimated your team capacity?

Your team capacity is as equally as important as system capacity.  Team capacity determines how much work you’re getting done and, at the end of the day, how much value you’re giving to your customers.  I think that most folks automatically assume that their team capacity is some magical number calculated based on the number of people that work on the team multiplied by a ‘hours per week’ number.  Although this isn’t entirely incorrect you might be short changing yourself.

So to start, let’s talk about what factors go into team capacity planning.  There’s the obvious, availability of the team.  You can’t factor forty hours a week if your team is also dedicated to other tasks.  What about complexity of the tasks?  There are methodologies out there that can help you plan for that.  What’s missing from the equation?  Simple, budget, talent and infrastructure.  Let’s take a brief dive shall we?

Budget

Most projects have budget constraints.  However, you need to weigh your available budget with time.  I think most people think that if you have 5 FTE’s (Full-time employees) working for six months on a project and it takes up the entire budget you’re probably doing better than most.  What if you have 2 FTE’s and 3 contractors that complete the work in 4 months but still fit within your budget?  What about 2 FTE’s and 3 contractors and it still takes six months?   Is it worth it?  Now you have freed up 3 additional FTE’s!  You now have just added to your team capacity.  You actually end up retaining intellectual property because of your FTE’s, but get the work completed by augmentation.  The pitfall is that typically a contractor will always cost you more.  So you need to figure out what the difference is between time and cost in order to take advantage. 

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is the key to making budget and talent work.  When I talk about infrastructure I’m talking about your team’s ability to ramp up an outside resource.  You need to ask questions like:  How long does it take to setup our environment?  How long does it take for them to understand our architecture?  What software will they need to complete the work?  I’ve seen a lot of talent and budget wasted on this over the years.  If you want to increase team capacity you should focus on the ramp up.  And not just for augmentation, but for your own team as well.  Either way a solid infrastructure adds to your team capacity.

Talent

Talent is probably the most important aspect when considering team capacity.  I’ve spoken about budget and infrastructure.  However, if you don’t have the talent to manage ‘additional capacity’ then you might as well have stopped at paragraph one.  If you follow budget and infrastructure than you need someone to help you manage the additional ‘capacity’.  This is where you need to invest in the team.  Based on my experience, a good senior level technical person can manage three to four staff augmentations (read contractors).  Again, the benefit is that you keep the intellectual knowledge in-house, but increase capacity at the same time.

Conclusion

So what is your true team capacity?  By factoring in talent, budget and infrastructure you can dramatically raise your team’s ability to meet your goals.