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.

I think we have this Bill Gates thing all wrong.

Lots of IS managers responded to my column on the return of the mainframe mentality, concerned about the damage renegade end-users can cause. Most of these letters recommended processes that prevent end-users from making mistakes.

That’s when it hit me: Bill Gates is the one guy trying to maintain an out-of-control desktop.

Look at Microsoft’s tactics and contrast them with its competitors:

  • Microsoft invented TAPI (Telephony Application Program Interface) which links telephones and computers at the desktop. Novell and AT&T invented TSAPI (Telephony Services Application Program Interface) which provides similar services through a server/PBX connection. IS can control and manage TSAPI. End-users can use TAPI without IS ever knowing about it.
  • Microsoft is putting together “Peer Web Services” which will let everyone publish HTML documents on Intranet servers. This empowers end-users while making them harder to control. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s competitors are focusing on Java, which gives IS new ways to develop and control applications. Significant fact: making HTML the standard enterprise document format breaks Microsoft’s de facto monopoly in word processors.
  • Microsoft builds personal computer operating systems that run on autonomous desktops. Many of its competitors (Oracle, IBM, Sun) have embraced the notion of a network computer – one that only has the functionality IS provides through the network.
  • Microsoft focuses on ease of installation and use – for all the griping, Windows/95 installs with remarkably little pain in the vast majority of cases, and the real attraction of NT server over Unix, Netware, and even OS/2 is how easy it is to set up and administer.
  • You don’t hear Microsoft extolling the virtues of “thin clients” which, after all, waste the processing power at the desktop while requiring bigger servers for IS to run.

Microsoft’s competitors? They all develop for and sell to IS.

Novell used to market (okay, what substituted for marketing for the kids in Sodium Valley) to renegade department managers tired of waiting for central IS, and Novell became the dominant player in the LAN marketplace. Then Novell started to become legitimate, using “Enterprise” as an adjective and selling to central IS instead of its original customer base. Novell now focuses on technologies that increase IS’s ability to manage the enterprise. In the bargain, it has failed to gain significant market share for any product, no matter how excellent, that provides end-users with personal power and productivity.

Sun, IBM, Oracle, Digital? They’ve never heard of end-users, and probably wish they’d go away. End-user activities don’t sell big iron, or even medium-size iron. They don’t sell database servers (you have to deal with IS to get at those).

Yes, the Macintosh is the original end-user machine, and Apple had similar ideas. Unfortunately, years of inept management at Apple caused the product line to stagnate, boring the daylights out of everyone who watches this industry. We all may be willing to wait 15 minutes for a Web page to download, but we won’t tolerate boredom.

End users want to work without IS looking over their shoulders. They want to fiddle around, gradually creating exactly what they want, emerging only when the finished product is ready for inspection, whether it’s a document, a spreadsheet, or a small database application. That’s why personal computers became popular in the first place, and why the big players uniformly missed the boat.

Yes, Bill Gates is a fierce competitor, and in fact is one of just a few in the industry who knows what game they’re playing. Gates, along with Scott McNealy of Sun, Larry Ellison of Oracle, and maybe one or two others, is playing winner-takes-all poker. The rest are busy increasing shareholder value, maximizing profits, and doing all the other stuff that gains short-term success at the expense of world domination.

Only I wonder … does Chairman Bill really want to rule the world, or is he playing a deeper game?