When it comes to innovation, IT should lead the enterprise. And the IT industry should set a good example for internal IT.
It hasn’t. Instead it’s delivering award-winning worst practices. The envelopes, please?
Our first winner is Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who gets the Brain Drain Award by (ahem) failing to sufficiently encourage top talent to stay with the company. Oracle might, I suppose, be better off with the people who came up with Java and MySQL working for competitors. It’s possible. Unlikely, but possible.
Next up: Steve Ballmer, who wins the Elephant-Gives-Birth-to-a-Mouse Award for announcing that Microsoft’s most interesting product launch … he used the term “groundbreaking” … will be Natal, a new, gesture-based game controller. I guess Microsoft is out of ideas for helping us perform productive work. It’s enough to break your heart.
But it gets worse, because Microsoft also canceled its truly groundbreaking Courier tablet project. Among other considerations, Courier would have made legal pads obsolete. Also, it made Apple’s iPad look like an Etch-a-sketch.
Everyone I know who saw the mock-up video had the same reaction: “I want one. Now!” Watch it yourself. You will too. Just an opinion: Jeff Bezos should buy the rights to this puppy, juice it up, and turn it into the next-generation Kindle.
Why? Because I want one. Now. That’s why.
But it’s Steve Jobs who wins the big one — the Warner Brothers Harry-Potter-Fan-Site-Cease-and-Desist-Letters Destroy Good Will Memorial Award.
First, Apple forced Chris Ostmo to change the name of his journalPad app, because, according to Steve Jobs, this only made sense, on the grounds that “journalPad” infringed on Apple’s trademark.
Too bad Apple doesn’t own the rights to “pad.” What it does own are the rights to many more lawyers than some poor schmuck app developer.
Steve Jobs also wrote a longish screed explaining his hostility toward Flash. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, here’s the gist: Flash, being cross-platform, is 100% proprietary. Apple wants all iPhoneOS-compliant applications to use open standards, building them with nothing but its proprietary development tools. Oh, and they also must make extensive use of Apple’s open-standards-based multi-touch interface instead of those tiresome last-generation mice.
Oops. Guess they’re not open standards after all. Apple has patented multi-touch and is suing anyone who mimics so much as a single gesture.
So Mr. Jobs, in the spirit of equal opportunity, here’s a gesture. I’ve patented it, too.
Then, of course, there’s the ever-popular iPhone prototype, left at a bar, where it just happened to fall into the hands of someone who figured out it was a prototype and not just another iPhone.
Memo to Steve Jobs: If you don’t want anyone to see your prototypes, don’t let them out of the labs. If you do let them out of the labs, don’t complain when someone outside the labs sees them. And look — when you asked to get your prototype back, Gizmodo Guy (Jason Chen) returned it. Nobody is naive enough to believe the search warrant you arranged, resulting in the police breaking down the guy’s door and seizing his equipment, was an actual search for evidence of a crime.
My theory: Apple orchestrated this charade to convince its no-longer-adoring public that losing the prototype wasn’t just a way to get free publicity.
So even if, as I don’t, you think you should run IT as a business, don’t run it like these businesses. The superficial similarity might tempt you: They, like you, have some degree of customer (or in your case “customer”) lock-in — Oracle because conversions aren’t something you do on a whim; Microsoft because likewise, and also you have no practical alternative for the desktop OS and office suite; Apple because where else are you gonna go for cool gadgets that will impress your friends?
It’s also barely possible the tactics mentioned here will help Oracle, Microsoft and Apple succeed — that great talent, great products, and good will don’t matter when you’re a commercial technology provider. It would boggle the mind, but it’s possible.
It isn’t possible for you. Your success depends entirely on your ability to build strong relationships throughout the company while fielding top-notch employees who can quickly and reliably deliver excellent, high-quality technology.
Luckily for you, you have one advantage over Larry and the two Steves (Ellison, Ballmer and Jobs, that is): They’re all multi-billionaires, and when you’ve achieved that level of wealth and power … well, Howard Hughes was an extreme example and cautionary tale of what can happen when societal constraints fall away.
Presumably, you don’t face the same risk.
After a recent string of encounters with HP (both their customer support and their executive team) I’d like to nominate HP as the Toyota of the computer industry.
In general I’ve found that the IT industry’s customer support operations seem next to clueless. I’ve taken to only using email or chat support, hopefully to more clearly state the issue, and to have a document trail. When clearly stating I’m having problems with ‘X’ the typical response is along the line of “I understand you are having a problem with ‘Z'” Totally clueless responses.
Wouldn’t that be three Steves? Or did I miss the point?
Larry Ellison, Steve Ballmer, and Steve Jobs.
“Microsoft because likewise, and also you have no practical alternative for the desktop OS and office suite”
I’m ignoring the rest of your article to focus on the Microsoft lock-in remark. It is simply not true. There are trade-offs to be made, and there will be cases where Windows really is the best choice, but there are practical alternatives. They offer better security and easier management. Ubuntu is an obvious choice, but there are others depending on actual requirements, expertise, and budgets.
Ubuntu/Open Office is only an alternative if you’re willing to sacrifice formatting fidelity in your documents and presentations. My informal surveys suggest few businesses are willing to do so. Until they are, or until the Open Office project, or IBM Symphony spin-off project, or Google, or Zoho, or whoever are willing to do what it takes to achieve perfect fidelity, the alternatives will continue to succeed on the fringes.
Wow! What an article. Makes my puny comment to the NPR article on Jobs’ statement seem so… puny. Did declare I was going to get rid of the iPhone though.
Two Steves indeed. Are you paranoid enough to hear lawyers’ footsteps yet?
Have to award a nod in favor of above comments re: HP – they do seem to be getting it. My only problem with recent PC purchase was with the DRM stuff… You Know Who. Converting all my music files to MP3 to get away from Steve.
ManagementSpeak: Don’t overthink this.
Translation: You’re right, but I don’t want to admit it.
Bob,
Once again you hit the nail on the head. The Emperor doesn’t have any clothes. It’s time IT and corporate management saw them for what they are, “Vendors” with something to sell, not benevolent dogooders.
L
You would almost think that Jobs might have picked up a bit of wisdom, or at least empathy, from his recent brush with his own mortality, but, sadly, No!