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|In: Industry Commentary|Last Updated:

I’m feeling pretty crabby over the excitement generated by network computers. P.T. Barnum could probably explain it, except that he’s dead. He knew every passing minute results in the birth of one more sucker.

It all comes down to bad cost accounting and dumb measures. PCs cost more to support than more traditional architectures, we’re told: three out of five dollars goes to support costs. We’re also told client/server systems cost three times more to develop than traditional systems.

It may even be true, although as previous columns have pointed out, the chance these comparisons having any meaning is pretty small. Even if it is true, it’s irrelevant.

One reason: companies that focus on cost are doomed. Companies that spend their energy reducing costs forget why they spend that money … to retain and attract customers.

Paul Erlich, writing about species extinction, came up with the metaphor of the rivet-popper, who sat on the wing of an airplane removing rivets. When a passenger complained to the pilot he explained the plane didn’t need that rivet anyway. The proof? The wing is still attached, isn’t it?

Cutting unnecessary costs is a Good Thing (GT to use the acronym). Far too many companies forget the keyword “unnecessary” and figure cutting costs is a GT. It’s not: most costs are investments in customer loyalty and acquisition.

The point: companies need to focus on value, not cost. Does anyone seriously think network computers will provide as much value on the desktop as a full-fledged PC?

And now, a reality check. Network computers will run software downloaded from servers. They’ll be completely compatible across all manufacturers, running the same code with no configuration problems, driver idiosyncrasies, or other technology-generated headaches.

I sure believe this. My 20 years of experience in this industry lead me to believe vendors work together in harmony to produce standards designed to maximize customer value, then resist the temptation to create propriety extensions or non-standard alternatives. Don’t you?

No matter how much grass we smoke, it’s always greener under someone else’s bed.

Let’s put our collective experience with real-world vendors aside, though, and pretend these gadgets really will work as advertised. Our support headaches will evaporate overnight.

So when someone in Accounting creates a critical spreadsheet and saves it before going home in the evening (on the server, since there’s no local storage) IS can be assured the spreadsheet program will run without trouble.

And when that accountant needs to do a bit of work at home because she’s a single Mom and has to put the kids to bed, but she’s on deadline for the next morning, she just pulls the spreadsheet up on her home computer and …

Oops! It runs from the network only. Okay, let’s imagine this technology allows for remotely accessing the corporate network from home. So she dials in and downloads the spreadsheet, so she can work on it on … hold it. She has Excel on her home computer. She bought it herself, of course, because her employer uses network computers. So she tries to load the spreadsheet into Excel and …

Hold it again. Do you think the network computer runs a spreadsheet that’s 100% compatible with Excel? I believe this just as much as I believe WordPerfect and MS Word exchange files while perfectly maintaining all formatting.

Now how about that mobile sales force? Are you going to outfit every one of those guys with a laptop network computer and 10 Mbps wireless network connection?

You think your support costs are high now? Start thinking about a mixed architecture, with network computers on the desktop and standard PCs everywhere else. You haven’t even begun to buy Excedrin in bulk.

So before we all get too excited about network computers, let’s do some serious thinking about how people use personal computers now, and figure out how they’ll react when we tell them they won’t be able to do that stuff anymore.

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|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

According to many readers, not only is the pen mightier than the sword, but the electronic spreadsheet has more edges and power than either of them.

Dozens of you sent me versions of the “renegade spreadsheet” story in response to my April 29th column on the mainframe mentality. The renegade spreadsheet is an unaudited spreadsheet created by a careless end-user that leads to disaster because (a) a customer saw it and took its business elsewhere; (b) the president made a critical decision based on it and ruined the company; or (c) the information in the spreadsheet was uploaded back into the enterprise database, corrupting the data in a way that forever changed the course of history.

While I’m sure renegade spreadsheets (and other end-user-generated disasters) have considerably more substance than urban legends of huge crocodiles in the New York sewers, I’m confident we can come up with better solutions than the preventive steps many IS directors seem to be leaning toward these days.

Here’s the core issue: most of us understand how the notion of management has transformed when it comes to manager/employee relationships: making decisions and directing processes has given way to leading by example, setting goals, coaching on how to be more effective, and attending to team dynamics.

IS manages our organizations’ technology. We need to make the same conceptual shift from control to empowerment here. In a previous column I pointed out the difference between preventing failure and encouraging success. Apply the same philosophy to managing the technology you provide to your end-users.

Here’s a starting point for what we might call an “End-User Computing Manifesto”:

Purchased Applications

  • Where IS has established a standard, end-users must adhere to that standard. If you’ve settled on OS/2, for example, nobody has the right to be a prima donna and insist on Windows/95 instead, any more than they can insist on using a different voice mail system from the rest of the company.
  • Where IS has established no standard, end-users have the right to purchase and install whatever software they choose to help them be more effective. IS promises no support for this software, but may choose to help out as time and staff are available. IS will never say, “We don’t provide this kind of tool and we won’t let you buy it either.”
  • In case of disaster, IS will restore any system to a standard default configuration
  • End-users will never be given administrative access to any shared resource.

End-user Development

  • IS will never prevent end-users from developing their own applications.
  • Responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of applications developed (or purchased) without the involvement of IS is the responsibility of the department manager.
  • IS will provide training for department managers on how to manage small-scale application development and maintenance.
  • Either IS or internal audit (or both) will provide consulting and review services for end-user-developed applications as requested.

Other Stuff

  • End-users may never, ever, assign themselves an IP address, as this may kill the whole network. IS, in turn, will manage networks so end-users never experience the temptation, either by using DHCP (or something similar) or by using a self-administering protocol like Novell’s IPX.
  • End-users may only upload information into production databases through audited validation programs provided for that purpose.
  • IS will provide convenient facilities for remote network access. End-users may never, under any circumstances, install and use a remote-access software package on their desktop system, as this will provide an unsecured, easily hacked entry point to the network.

In my experience, policies like these, clearly communicated and consistently enforced, protect corporate resources without stifling end-user creativity. If any of you have additions to this list, send them in and I’ll include them (or at least the ones I like!) in a future column.

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