Houston Neal, Director of Marketing at Software Advice, is conducting a survey on ERP implementation strategies. Specifically, which implementation strategy (big bang, phased rollout, or parallel adoption) has the best success rate.
You can find the survey in his article entitled ERP Implementation Strategies – A Guide to ERP Implementation Methodology.
As many of my readers know, I am a member of the business networking site LinkedIn. In my practice I have had numerous inquiries regarding SaaS agreements and many requests to draft such agreements from my clients. I found and joined a very good group on the LinkedIn networking site entitled Software as a Service (SaaS) Group. The group site itself has a lot of information and discussion groups and news items and I found it to be a good resource when I encountered some unusual issues. So one day I’m sitting in front of my computer when a LinkedIn notice pops into my inbox from Justin Pirie entitled “Your guide to the week’s events in SaaS for the Linkedin SaaS group by Justin Pirie.” He got my attention and so I checked it out and I am glad that I did. His site Paradigm Shift Actionable Insight for a cloudy world has a plethora of information. It is current, it is informative, it is hard hitting, and a must read. I like the sources he cites. It is a bit of a “No holds barred” approach.
As an ex-SAP employee sometimes it is hard to see the forest through the trees and I tend to tread lightly, especially since a significant part of my current practice involves SAP licensing and drafting of Master Service Agreements for the implementation of SAP software. However I also am aware that it is also important to be forthright and recognize the issues and Justin Pirie does that in his blog. With the current news regarding SAP and the upheaval that has ensued, I think Justin’s approach is the right one. He starts with a cite to Paul Hamerman’s article for Forrester entitled SAP Announces Changes at the Top; Hasso Steps Up. He follows up the hard-hitting truth of Hamerman’s article with more of the same with a quote from Jeff Kaplan of THINKstrategies and his February 8, 2010 article entitled SAP Needs Strong Leadership to Stop Sinking as follows:
“The significance of this event was clearly underlined by the role SAP’s Co-Founder and Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Hasso Plattner, played as the primary company spokesperson during a corporate conference call this morning.
During the call, Plattner made an emotional defense of the company’s strategies and tactics in response to rising criticism in the face of SAP’s financial struggles. Plattner used the occasion to dispute claims that SAP isn’t moving fast enough to respond to changes in the market by proclaiming that SAP is well on its way to becoming a “multiple product company”. He gave Apotheker credit for “turning around” BusinessByDesign and said the rollout of the v2.5 of the on-demand solution is “close”.
The reality is that BusinessByDesign has only had isolated success in a handful of deployments in the field, and its scalability from a technological and go-to-market point of view is yet to be proven.
The truth is that BusinessByDesign’s lack of success is a reflection of SAP’s lack of commitment to the solution and an overall SaaS strategy.
The company’s leadership has never fully acknowledged the fundamental changes disrupting the software industry as a result of rapidly changing customer preferences and competitive pressures. For example, various SAP leaders in the past have suggested that BusinessByDesign would primarily serve as an ‘on-ramp’ to its on-premise customers rather than a solid standalone solution. This half-hearted approach not only turned off prospective customers, it didn’t incent its own staff to make a concerted effort to develop and deliver a competitive solution. (Emphasis Ed.)”
Justin Pirie follows up this strong dose of truth with yet another quote from Vinnie Mirchandani’s article entitled Enterprise Software is Entirely Bereft of Soul:
“But the reality is the customer has been forgotten in enterprise software, not just at SAP. It’s about squeezing as much out of old technology as possible. As I wrote earlier in the week. “I wish the other bigger vendors had the cajones to acknowledge they similarly mostly live off profits from software 15- 20 years old, from consultants which implement that old software and provide services from data centers which were designed during the Cold War.”
Leo was expected to do more of the same in his new role as CEO. So, he did – unbelievably pushing maintenance price hikes in the middle of the deep recession. For all his talk about taking on the partners who have piled 5 to 10X costs on top of SAP’s own expensive solutions, he really could not – they were part of the “field” he created.
SAP needed someone to dismantle that “old field” as the market transitions away from the big, honking upfront license and implementation and operating cost model. It is screaming for soul and innovation. Instead they rewarded Leo. Surely, they did not expect him to choke his own baby?”
At this point, I’m not sure if another dose of reality is needed. Enjoy the articles and do stop by Justin Pirie’s blog.
Facebook’s most popular feature, News Feed, has been patented thus locking in the Intellectual Property Rights. This popular feature shows a member’s activities, to those allowed to view it, across the site.
Kenneth Corbin reports in his Internetnews.com article entitled Facebook Lands Patent for News Feed that facebook described the feature in its patent application as follows:
“The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method may further include displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers and dynamically limiting the number of news items displayed.”
There have been numerous privacy concerns and protests from members regarding how much of one’s activities could be broadcast on the site. However, these privacy protests have waned as other social networking sites such as MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn have imitated the feature.
So what are the ramifications? With the granting of the patent, Facebook may now sue any social networking site that includes an algorithm-driven mechanism for sharing and distributing information.
In a related Reuters’ story Military Allows Twitter, Other Social Media:
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The Pentagon announced on Friday it has authorized the use Twitter, Facebook and other so-called "Web 2.0" sites across the U.S. military, saying the benefits of social media outweighed security concerns.
The decision, which comes at a time of growing concern over cyber-security, applies only to the military's non-classified network.
"The purpose of the policy is to recognize that we need to take advantage of these Internet-based capabilities. These Web 2.0 tools need to be part of what we use," David Wennergren, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, told Reuters.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, 66, has said that he wants to use social networking to help the Pentagon interact with U.S. military members, many of whom are in their early 20s.
But opponents have cited the risks of information leaks, of opening gateways to hackers, along with a potential overload of precious bandwidth on the Defense Department's network.
Training people so they know what can and cannot be disclosed on the Internet is a more effective policy than simply banning use of social media on work computers, he said.
"So part of this is about having a trained workforce that is savvy in how you operate in the information age."
Copyright 2010 Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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