Archives for 2006

post

SaaS vs. Open Source for SMB’s? A No-Brainer.

Posted on March 5, 2006 ·

(Update)
I have to take issue with Paul Gillin’s approach as he discusses whether SMB’s are better off with SaaS or Open Source Applications. If we equate Open Source to downloadable, on-premise installed software, I have no doubt, and have stated it before that the only good answer is SaaS. But, hold on, a few minutes later we’ll see these two options may not be mutually exclusive for long.

Paul analyzes several criteria:

  • cost
  • speed of deployment
  • customization
  • reliability
  • data ownership
  • vendor viability

These are all issues well-discussed on the web, and although Paul does not explicitly say, my reading is that he also leans towards the SaaS conclusion. The problem is that this criteria-by-criteria approach works well with a typical (mid-size) company where some level of IT expertise is present. Small Business America is very different from the web-savy geeky software startups; the majority are more traditional businesses with no CIO, IT department, in fact often without any IT support whatsoever. While the two main obstacles SMB’s face with any on-premise implementation are cost and (lack of) IT expertise, you can’t just translate the latter into cost – i.e. the cost of hiring full-time IT support. The opportunity cost of Management venturing into IT hiring and project decisions instead of focusing on their primary business makes this an impractical approach, leaving us with only one choice: SaaS.

Another issue not discussed in the article is integration. Open Source or SaaS, getting several packages work together requires IT and business process expertise, which typically means hiring expensive consultants. Therefore, I would go one step further: not only SaaS is the best choice for most SMB’s but they should seek to minimize the number of providers, i.e. the best choice is to use integrated All-In-One solutions.

The current undisputed leader in this field is NetSuite, but as they follow Salesforce.com’s footsteps and move upstream chasing midsize businesses, they leave an opening for up-and-coming challenger 24SevenOffice, which focuses solely on SMB’s, and covers a wider range of business functionality than the incumbent.

This is the situation today. Now, let’s revisit the original question: SaaS or Open Source? A tiny startup named SQLFusion is working on making that question obsolete. The dilemma with Open Source: a lot of good applications are available, but they are written by geeks for geeks… you really have to be quite knowledgeable to download and implement them. Example: at one of the startups I am advising I use SugarCRM over the internet. Starting to use it was a no-brainer, but when I looked at the prerequisites and the process of installing it myself, my head started spinning. No way, this is not for me! Open Source Fusion, which I hear is within days of opening for a limited beta will bridge the gap between availability and usability of Open Source Programs, by offering such apps to be used over the Internet. In true On-Demand fashion, maintenance, upgrades all happen in the background, one can start using the programs without implementing them. So it will no longer be SaaS or Open Source, but SaaS and Open Source.

The first incarnation of Open Source Fusion will provide access to individual applications, still leaving the integration dilemma for SMB’s, but the technology under the hood enables the company to later offer an integration layer between the key applications it serves up.

So the future is Open Source Software as a Service. Hm, here’s an ugly acronym: OSSaaS (?)

Update (3/6). Releated posts:

Update (5/23): Stefan over at The Small Business Blog discusses the issue; his company, WinWeb is expected to offer Open Source apps as a service soon.


Filed Under: Enterprise Software, ERP / CRM, Open Source, SaaS, SMB / SME, Software, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
post

Blogs To Replace Personal Websites

Posted on March 5, 2006 ·

(Updated)

I don’t think this is a radically new idea: personal websites are so 20th century – Blogs bring them to life, and they are easier to set up. As Don Dodge says, “Blogs are two way, in fact many way, communication where the readers create a conversation by leaving comments, trackbacks, and links. Web sites don’t lend themselves to leaving comments and starting a conversation.”

I think for most individuals a blog offers more power, flexibility, ability for self-expression and dialogue, than a static website. There are a few tricks, however, if you feel the need to have a permanent front-page. Several blog-platforms allow for “sticky posts”. Create only one sticky post, this will always stay at the top, i.e it can become your “static” home page. Smart use of titles, icons, graphics with URL’s in the sticky post, surrounded by categories, lists in the sidebars can turn the “sticky” into the point of entry for several parts of your blog – a’la traditional websites.

Some blog-platforms (e.g. Blogware by Blogharbor, the one I use) also cater for creating classic, static Web pages, allow you to FTP content up to your site, have photo albums ..etc. The static pages don’t automatically become part of your blog categories or your main page, giving you the freedom of freely mix and match with the blog. You could use the static page as your homepage (like the sticky described above) ,or you could call it from a link in a blog post – making sure that’s the only way to access it, someone cannot stumble upon the standalone page without reading the post.

The static page, the sticky post, or badges on your sidebar could also become the launching pad to a personal wiki (SocialText and JotSpot both offer free personal versions) , to your documents in Writely, or to any number of Web 2.0 app’s. It doesn’t matter that all these services are hosted on different servers by different companies, you can bring them all together on your launchpad page.

I recently wrote about using wiki’s to create an Instant Intranet for companies – if you have any projects that require collaboration with others, you can do the same, making it part of your static page.

With all these tools available, who needs a traditional web-page?

Related posts:

Update (3/22): Apparently not just personal sites: Steve Rubel reports Another Company Goes Blog Only

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Filed Under: Blogging, Collaboration, Personal Productivity ·
post

Are we Men or Children? But Sometimes the Children are Men :-)

Posted on March 4, 2006 ·

This is one of those cases where I had the urge to quickly comment on a post by Ken; then all of a sudden I realized it has it’s own place on my blog.

Ken laments on how  “little blogospats that are popping up all over the Blogosphere sound more like my kids fighting over a Polly Pocket than anything resembling reasoned conversation.” 
He refers to “Roy Schestowitz, all worked up because Scoble can’t build a computer out of wood and pine sap”  Roy goes a step further though: “Scoble cannot tell his ass from his face”  Hm, I have to agree with Ken, “the second you stop talking about the issue and start attacking your opponent, you have lost. Game over.” 
Random Bytes comes to Scoble’s defense: “I’ve chatted with him and he definitely left me with the impression that he didn’t wear his pants on his shoulders … There are all types of geeks out here. Some of us, I guess, are just ass-faces. Others, like Robert’s reader, seem to be just mainly asses.”    On the pants, issue, let’s refer to the expert, who knows Robert doesn’t wear his pants on his shoulders. He wears no pants at all, everyone knows he goes Naked.:-)

On a more serious note, I have news for Roy (and others): Technology’s primary role is to advance the lives of all of us, and guess what, that means mostly for non-technologists. We need  the ‘hardcore’ technologists who create it, the non-techie users (the rest of the world, which happens to be the majority), and the in-betweeners, who explain it, help us select and use it.

Ken, on a brighter note, to your “Are we men or are we children”:  well sometimes the children are men.  Here’s a blog worth reading.  Ben Casnocha was definitely a child when he started his first business (see USA Today Article). His not some kind of business-whiz-kid only. He eats books for lunch, reviewing a hundred or so per year. He is Captain of his high-schools basketball team.  He turned 18 a few days ago, but as a new subscriber to his blog, I think I’ve uncovered a big trick: he really is 28. At least intellectually. 

Tags: , ,   , , , , , , , , ,

Filed Under: Bay Area, Blogging, Humor, Startups ·
post

Wikis are the Instant Intranet

Posted on March 4, 2006 ·

(Updated)

Since I received a few questions after my post: 43 Wiki Prank and the Whiteboard Test, I though I should add a bit of clarification. The underlying thought in that article was to pick the right tool for the right situation, and the whiteboard-test is just one trick to differentiate when Wiki’s are helpful vs. Forum, Blog ..etc software. It’s by far not the only situation when a wiki is invaluable.

Another example is setting up a living, breathing Intranet, one that people can actually use. Anybody who works in large corporations probably thinks of the IntraNet as a one-way communication channel for Management to talk (down) to employees. Getting your own content in? Forget it! Even when I was VP in a mid-sized organization and did not have wait for approval, I still had to talk to the IT Director, wait for him to fit it in his team’s schedule, then tell him what was wrong when my content finally showed up.

It does not have to be this way! Companies “own” (well, at least part of the day) the intellectual capacity of their employees, so why not put it to work? Even in the large corporate environment a wiki can be a lively collaborative addition to the Intranet (see the wiki effect by Ross), but for smaller, nimble, less hierarchical business a wiki is The Intranet.

At a much smaller organization I wanted to introduce a wiki for collaboration, for all the reasons explained in the video below. The company was a bit more old-fashioned, not exactly the early-adopter type. I expected some resistance against something with a geeky-funny name like wiki… so I simply announced we’ll be creating an editable Intranet. People started to use it from day 1, and few cared that the thingie behind is called a wiki.

David Terrar describes a somewhat similar story here.

Finally, the excellent video by JotSpot Founder Joe Kraus.

Other related posts:

Update (4/9): A really good guide to wikis by David Terrar.

Update (10/22): Here’s a case study of Confluence, the leading enterprise wiki being used as the ExtraNet.

Update (4/9/07): Read/WriteWeb on The Age of Instant Intranets.

Update (9/20/08):  A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Intranet

Filed Under: Collaboration, Enterprise Software, Open Source, Personal Productivity, SMB / SME, Social Networking, Software · Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
post

M-listers and Down-linkers

Posted on March 1, 2006 ·

(Updated)

Interesting discussion going on about M-listers – the middle crowd, somewhat known bloggers but not quite A-listers – crosslinking to each other, eventually elevating some to A-list level.  “In time the M-lister who is most prolific on this subject, but not necessarily the best writer or scobler, acquires even more links. Eventually this blogger becomes the authority on the subject, and even A-listers take note and deliver links. The resulting accumulation of links are enough to reach A-list status. Thus we have a slow bubbling up from the middle, rather than the overnight success story so often told by analysts.”

Let’s take it a step further: it “pays”  (the currency being links) to “link down” as opposed to sucking up.  Why?  When you link to an A-lister, and let’s be nice, it’s real reference, not just sucking up, your trackback may show up but you will likely not be specifically mentioned / linked, since you are one of the crowd. (Notable, original content  may be the exception: I had my content “lifted” without credit on top blogs, but I also got actively Scobleized for “discovering” a company first. Steve Rubel also tends to credit such posts.)  But back to  our subject,  a trackback on an A-list blog will likely result in a temporary spike in traffic for 1–2 days. That’s not too bad, but does not last.  Of course out of a few hundred extra visitors you may pick up a few subscribers, or a few links, so linking to the A-blog may indirectly increase your rank. 

What happens when you link down?  Let’s say you have 100 links and you link to someone with only 15?   For that blogger YOU are Scoble… chances are while you will not see increased traffic, the other person will actively link back to you.  So with a balanced strategy of “up and down” linking you build both traffic and links.  And remember, Daddy Technorati counts the number of different blogs, not the number of links.  1000 links from 100 blogs isn’t any better than 120 links from 100 blogs.

Tactics apart, the primary reason for linking should be to place your story in context, which may very well come from either direction.

And now I share my secret: I will always remain a Z-lister. Just look at my name.

Related posts:

 Disclaimer: in the course of writing this post I have committed the acts of sucking up, peer-linking, M-linking, Z-linking, Linking down.  My tag-list looks like major sucking up.  

Update (3/1):  The Z list helps with email overload  This  is an example of:  a different kind of Z-list; me sucking up; Scoble giving credit and link-love where it’s due.

Update (3/4):  Wow, my thoughts in writing… and I did not have to type it: Bloglogic and the Litmus Test for Link Love

Update (3/18): Here’s the post Guy refererred to in his comment below: The Art of Sucking Down.  – in the real world, not the blogospher. Unlike for the “sucking up” article,  I don’t think you’ll take any flak for this one, Guy, the world would be a more pleasant place it we all acted like your post suggests.

Robert Scoble agrees – I can attest, he is one of those often giving credit “down”, so he probably acts similarly in real life.  He has scolded Guy for his previous suck-up article, rightfully so, I migth add:-)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Social Networking ·
post

Putin: Russia Still Regrets 1956 Crackdown in Hungary

Posted on February 28, 2006 ·

Half a century later Russian President Putin, on his visit to Budapest acknowledged Moscow’s moral responsibility for the brutal Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprising.

The Kremlin sent Soviet tanks into Hungary on Nov. 4. 1956, to crush a revolt after Hungarian Prime Minister and Communist reformer Imre Nagy formed a coalition government, proclaimed neutrality, ended censorship, and withdrew from the Warsaw Pact.

Today’s Hungary has integrated itself into Western alliances and trade blocs, joining the European Union two years ago and NATO in 1999. The country also sent troops to Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition there. (full article here)

Tags: , , , , ,

Filed Under: Politics ·
post

43 Wiki Prank and the Whiteboard Test

Posted on February 28, 2006 ·

Weblogswork is making fun of Ross Mayfield using a wiki for everything. Ok, so it’s really Alex Muse’s idea, check out his story. They set up and CrunchNotes announced the 43 Best Blogs page, which is open for anyone to edit. Of course Ross typically ends up selling / using / donating Socialtext wikis for the right purpose, while this 43thingie is just a mess. I could have my 5 minutes of fame by inserting myself in the #1 position. Not that being a mess is bad … I suppose it’s just a cool prank to get some buzz and attention – otherwise a digg-like voting system would make more sense.

Let’s use this opportunity though to make a point: wikis are a wonderful productivity tool, they help cut down on the flood of email we’re all buried under, reduce “occupational spam” (those unnecessary CC’s, even worse, BCC’s) ..etc…etc…etc. But most importantly, a wiki is for collaboration. Not everything we do is a collaborative effort, and as such, a wiki is not always the best tool to use. Key in picking the right tool is the intention, the desired outcome of the communication.

For ad-hoc, one-to-one, or one-to-some type communication email is still the winner. Blogs are the best for one-to-many regular communication and dialogue. When the value is in the individual contributions, preserving their original content and sequence, traditional forum software is probably the best. Movie-, book-, product reviews are typical examples, for example I would question that Amazon’s ProductWiki is such a good idea. (well, it is, if you enjoy wiki-wars).

The simple “whiteboard-test” helps determine when wikis are really helpful: if ideally you’d like to have all participants of your conversations together in a room, where anyone can walk up to the whiteboard, wipe off content, correct, overwrite what others done until the group collectively reaches the desired outcome, then you should use a wiki. In other words it’s not the debate, the process, the individual arguments that matter, but the synthesis of the collective wisdom. (actually, you get all the other stuff from the change logs). It’s clearly easier to use wikis in a self-controlled environment, like project teams, companies … essentially any team driving towards a common purpose, but Wikipedia is proof that collaboration can be achieved with Pigeonthe open community at large, too.

For everything else, there is always good old pigeon-mail.

Related posts:


Filed Under: Blogging, Collaboration, Social Networking, Software · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
post

More Than Disturbing

Posted on February 27, 2006 ·

The video below was not shot in some hidden terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, but in the state of Oklahoma, USA.  All the weapons shown are available for purchase from the sponsoring vendor.

Should the embedded video not work, here’s the link.

How can any insane parent bring that little girl here?    Well, perhaps after killing a few dummies and blowing up some cars they continue their nice family afternoon on a concert by these other sweet girls:

Prussian_Blue They are Prussian Blue, and the sweeties’ lyrics are like this:

“Let the cities burn, let the streets run red, if you ain’t white you’ll be dead.”

“Soon will come a great war, A bloody, but holy day. And after that purging, Our people will be free… And the forests will echo our grace, For the brand new dawn of our Race.”

“Aryan man awake, How much more will you take, Turn that fear to hate, Aryan man awake.”

What a “nice” family day…

Related posts:

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Filed Under: Misc, Politics ·
post

Bush Now Admits Osama Helped Him Beat Kerry

Posted on February 27, 2006 ·

President Bush now says his 2004 victory over Sen. John Kerry, who is mulling a comeback in 2008, was inadvertently aided by al Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden’s videotaped diatribe against Bush the Friday before the 2004 election.

See Drudge Report for full article.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Filed Under: Politics ·
post

Autistic Kid Becomes Basketball Star

Posted on February 27, 2006 ·

(Updated)

Jason is a special education student in Greece, New York, enthusiastic supporter of his high school basketball team for years. After years of watching the game he finally was allowed to suit up, and even play in the final four minutes.  What a surprise!  He scored 20 points, and is now all over the Internet, CBS, MSNBC, ESPN … you name it.  This is one video worth watching.  (Thanks, Ben!)

Update (2/28).  The embedded player I originally had here no longer works, youtube removed the video  on CBS’s demand. Here’s the link to the original CBS Evening News video.

Update: (2/27):   Another video here,  and a post to put things in prospective:  “Probably 90% of the those who view this video do not fully understand what this truly means for this boy and his family. For children with issues as big as autism, every day, every hour, every minute is a challenge … we celebrate a “good” day, one without a meltdown, bizarre behavior in the grocery store, defiance, mania, rage.”  please read the post.

Update (5/5/07):  The video is back on Youtube again.

­ 

Tags: , , ,

Filed Under: Misc ·
« Previous Page
Next Page »