Marketing genius

While browsing the web I stumbled on the promo for the Bob Dylan compilation due out next week. The create your own message feature is pure marketing genius.

Thanks to the Bookchase Blog for putting me onto this. The promo certainly worked for me, I'll be buying the album.

XP gets a lifeline while Vista struggles

Finally Microsoft have faced the reality that Vista is not popular with the market and have announced Windows XP will be available beyond the planned January 30, 2008 cut off date.

I've ranted enough about Vista's problems enough on this blog but the main reason why Vista has failed is that the benefits of moving up to Vista do not, for most people, outweigh the negatives.

In my view, the core problem is that Vista is Windows XP with a tutu. That tutu is the User Access Control feature. It gets in the way of what people are doing.

This is a problem of Microsoft's own making. To keep users, and their own software developers, happy they allowed the mess that was the Windows 9x security model to extend into XP.

The stupid thing is the Windows NT family, which includes Vista and XP, always had superior security to earlier versions of Windows but Microsoft decided to ignore it .

I suspect this was because their own software, especially Office XP and 2000, didn't run properly in Limited User profiles.

Being stuck with running most users as Administrators they decided on putting on the UAC tutu and that's made Vista as attractive as pig with lipstick.

There's a lot of things about this debacle that amazes me; how it took the world's biggest software company five years to come out with a substandard product, how the rest of the IT world completely bungled getting their products compatible and why Apple haven't doubled their market share because of this fumbling.

While Microsoft deserve most of the scorn in this schemozzle, the rest of the IT industry should hang their collective heads in shame as well.

When Adwords get things wrong

Today's question on our IT Queries site was about registry cleaners. My reply was less than enthusiastic about these products as most of them are snake oil and there's perfectly good free tools to do the job.

Given my negative reply I had to laugh at what Adwords had inserted at the top of the question.



I know it's possible to exclude certain adwords appearing on your page but I'm not sure I can be bothered blocking them all and I know for every one I block there'll be five others to take their place.

I'll just rely on readers to properly read the article.

They do read, don't they?

The little picture

Nick Gruen writes in his Rough Type blog about the fat guy who can't get his web 2.0 software to work. Salesforce decided to upgrade their software and now it won't synch with Outlook.

I'm not a fan of Nick's blog. I'm more a little picture person than a big picture guy, I'm more interested in the small guy's application of new technology. Like my post yesterday of how a three person office uses Google Maps.

In fact, I'm such a small picture guy not seeing the wood for the trees is not my problem, I'm fighting my way through the underbrush.

So it's interesting to see Nick stoop to my level for a change. And he's absolutely right, the Software-as-a-Service guys need to consider the little stuff as much as the big stuff.

Where I disagree is that synching with Outlook is not little; it's a major problem. Breaking Outlook synchronisation is ridiculous.

I'll bet plenty of corporate IT admins have been sweating while the Chief Executive whatever screams at them about this very issue. Whether Salesforce like it or not, Outlook is the established leader in the PIM field and they have to deal with it.

The danger with letting technology people run an operation is they see the technology as being an end in itself. This is why Linux doesn't get traction in the mass market and why software developers tell small business to ditch Outlook.

In the real world IT is a means to improve productivity: The computers; Internet; Web 2.0 apps and everything else is there to help ordinary people do stuff. When the computer gets in the way of doing things then the computer has to go.

As the fat guy says in his blog,

"...Oh, and I’ll be going back to the open-source free crap for making cool pie-charts out of an SQL database (which my dog could probably write) for the quarterly investor reports. Maybe even Google docs. Maybe even nothing more than a yellow legal pad and some markers."

There's the message for everyone in the IT industry; whether you are a high falutin', macbook toting, Web 2.0 big picture guy or just the mom and pop corner computer store. If your products aren't delivering what the customers want, they will go elsewhere.

Using web applications

One of the fascinating things with the rise of web 2.0 applications is how they are changing business practices. Pretty well every week I see a few new and unexpected ways people are adapting the new tools to their work.

Yesterday I visited a hazardous goods consultant. Most of his business involves inspecting warehouses and factories and advising on how they can meet standards and reduce risks.

Before taking an assignment he uses the satellite view of Google Maps to check out the premises. He's found this helps him pick up features he might have missed when visiting onsite or reviewing plans, it also saves him a lot of time in preparing proposals, quotes and reports.

One of the important aspects is that he can now check out potential clients in places that he wouldn't have considered two or three years ago. While I was there he was checking out a warehouse and factory complex in Perth to see if the job was worth his while.

This is the exciting thing about the new generation of web based applications, they are allowing smaller businesses to reach into markets they couldn't have considered a few years back.

How to kill a web 2.0 product

How do you kill a web based service? Sign an exclusivity deal which locks most users out of your service, that's how.

MySpace signing an exclusivity deal with Optus and blocking Australian who are with other carriers from accessing the mobile service pretty well kills that app dead here.

Mind you, given the average age of an Australian MySpace user is rapidly approaching 12 and that many pre-paid mobile plans don't include data, I doubt MySpace Mobile is generate much interest.

I can understand they have to make as much as they can before the revenue stream completely dries up.

Locked software

Mark Fletcher's Australian Newsagents Blog has two stories of newsagents locked out of point of sale software.

From the posts, I assume this is due to licensing disputes between the store and the software vendor. This is absolutely disgraceful behaviour by the vendor as it cripples the business.

Sadly, this sort of thing is not unusual with proprietary database programs. The data is firmly locked away and difficult to get at unless the victim stumps up a large and improbably amount of money.

I would recommend to anyone considering buying such a program to have a close look at the backup and data export features in the program. All programs should have a local backup function and the ability to export the databases into a generic format like a Comma Separated Values text file.

That way, should you find a dispute looming then you can at least export your business data into a format that other programs can read.

For my money, locking customers out of their own data is shameful behaviour. Sadly this lack of respect for the consumer all too common in the IT industry and is another reason why we are getting a reputation somewhere between real estate agents and used car dealers.

Too many Vista versions

When I first heard of there would be five different versions of Vista I thought it would be a support nightmare. Well I was right on that but now I'm finding it messes me up in other ways.

I'm midway through adapting Dan Gookin's latest "PCs for Dummies" for the Australian market. One of the things that's really, really irritating me is the version differences.

Take for instance the chapter on video making, Dan spends two pages on Windows Movie Maker. The final line reads "this isn't available in all versions of Windows Vista".

This proviso is having to go at least once into every chapter. It's a joke.

I've blogged on this being way too confusing for customers before. To make it harder, most of the entry level PCs, the CHUMPS as Adrian Kingsley-Hughes calls them, come with Vista Home Basic. This means they don't get much of the features Microsoft tout and that we spend much of the book discussing.

There was plenty of confusion between XP Home and Professional. Users were caught out because they bought the wrong type, usually office users buying Home and finding they couldn't connect to the office domain. With Vista it's far, far worse.

Apple are exactly right on this, this is needlessly confusing the market. It also screws up the channel as it increases inventory costs and returns.

To say Vista is not Microsoft's finest hour is an understatement.

Shipping bare PCs

According to CNet The Globalization Institute, a European think tank, has recommended the EU require all PCs to be sold without preloaded operating systems.

I can't see that happening. A bare bones computer is a nightmare, it would send support costs soaring as buyers spend hours installing the operating system and system drivers. Customers want computers to work as soon as they plug them in.

Such a move in the EU would be a boom for the IT support industry. If this came in, I might consider moving to somewhere nice in Europe for a few years to take advantage of this.

Demolishing the silo

The SMH discusses the exodus of companies to the suburbs from the cities. To say I'm sceptical about this is an understatement, moving offices away from transport hubs to car dependent suburbs strikes me as a big step backwards. Even more so given the steady rises in oil prices.

But along with the usual management justifications for the bean counters bright ideas the SMH article claims a new one; moving from a high rise office to a "campus" will destroy "siloing".

It's funny they mention siloing in an article about Optus. The worst case of Siloing I came across was when I was trying to connect a client to the Optus Exchange server.

I just needed the password to connect, so we rang the Optus support desk. No dice, she was using a Dell and the only people on that day were Mac support techs. She's have to call back two days later when the PC guy was in.

We got the password by ringing back a few minutes later and pretending she was on a Mac.

If the bean counters think spending millions on moving to the suburbs and losing half their staff is the way to defeat that sort of mentality, then I wish them the best.

Another Google threat to Sensis

I've previously blogged about the threat Google is to the Yellow and White Pages monopolies Sensis currently holds. Thanks to Techmeme and Search Engine Land, I found Google411.

While this is currently a US-based experiment you can't help but think this is another threat to Sensis' dominance.

If Google launch this in Australia and take a chunk of the directory assistance market it pretty well leaves Sensis with only the printed directory business as a monopoly. Sensis have shown they struggle when forced to compete in a market.

There's no doubt the printed Yellow and White Pages directories are going to be very profitable for a long time to come, but these are declining businesses with high distribution costs.

When I was a Telstra shareholder, I was a firm advocate of them selling Sensis. I'm wondering now if they've left it too late.

Vista drives the switch to Macs

It certainly appears switching to the Mac has become the flavour of the month. We covered it on the last ABC Sydney radio spot, now Jason Fry of the Wall Street Journal has his story of considering switching which is backed up by Mark Cuban's experience.

The message from Mark and Jason's readers is clear, Vista is driving customers away from Microsoft. The only thing restricting Apple's growth is their retail strategy as the New York Time described earlier this week.

We've certainly had a number of clients looking at changing but so far few have done so. Those that have seem to be happy with one or two exceptions.

There's no doubt though that Microsoft has really dropped the ball on Vista. Not enough to threaten their position in the market, but even one of the world's biggest companies can't afford many more mistakes like this.

Missing sales opportunities

I visited a client on Friday who had bought a new printer. One of the irritations of buying printers is how manufacturers skimp on a couple of dollars by not supplying USB cables which are essential to set up the machine.

This should be a great selling opportunity for the sales person to make more profit on the sale, given the fat margins shops make on cables. Yet nearly half the new printers I see are sold without a cable.

For the manufacturer, this is false economy as they almost certainly receive support calls from upset customers who can't figure out how to plug the printer in. This probably wipes out any savings from not throwing a cable into the box.

The local shop is even more at risk as those customers who can't set it up may well return the printer. That wipes out the profit on the next five printers.

Another niggle is the failure of shops to sell paper to go with the printer. Again this is another good opportunity. My client had no paper in her house.

The client suggested they could throw the cable and paper in for free as a goodwill gesture. Unfortunately too much of the retail IT industry operates on margins too fine to allow that. Also many customers are wholly price driven so goodwill gestures are usually wasted.

I charged for the cable, but gave some paper as a goodwill gesture. I'm still baffled why the shops don't do this.

Betraying customer's trust

Roses Only is a business I've admired. The company's founder, James Stevens, has built up a great online business from scratch. So I'm dismayed and disappointed with how they've handled the news their database has been hacked.

Putting aside the question of why Roses Only were saving credit card details, the handling of this is disgraceful as we have no information on what has happened and who is affected.

The first place concerned customers are going to go to is the website. There is absolutely nothing about the problem anywhere on the site.

But the front page of the website proclaims "To ensure the security and privacy for all our customers. Roses Only does not store any credit card data in its system".

Well, according to the media, that's not true. "Hackers" have stolen credit card details from the database.

So you'd think clarifying this issue would be important for Roses Only. Apparently not, because apart from a press release issued by their PR agency they have nothing to say about this.

Communicating through a PR company to the media is not good enough. There needs to be, at the very least, something on the front page of the website explaining the problem.

I think what irritates me the most with this is the PR agency's line that you should contact your bank.

This is not the customer's problem. This is Roses Only's problem. It's up to Roses Only to contact customers, not let them wait for a pile of fraudulent credit card transaction to appear on their statement.

While the customer might not be responsible for those transactions, reporting and undoing them will be an expensive and time consuming hassle. Some people will have had legitimate transactions declined while others will have incurred penalty charges and some will miss the illegitimate entries.

Online commerce relies on trust by both the merchant and the consumer. Both sides of an online transaction are trusting the other side will do the right thing.

In my view Roses Only has breached that trust. It's a shame such an innovative organisation has dropped the ball so badly.

Switching to Open Office

Smart Company tech blogger, Brendan Lewis, has a post about switching one of his businesses to Open Office. He has a number of useful tips for anyone else contemplating this switch.

We offered this to clients a few years back and it was a disaster.

The biggest problem for businesses switching is user resistance. Office staff like having the Big Blue "W" or "X" to click on. We also have to keep in mind that many office workers have invested many years experience in getting to understand the foibles and menu commands in Office.

Transitioning costs are the financial killer. Brendan mentions this but I think understates it somewhat. Basically all your macros and templates are either going to have to be imported or recreated. The cost of doing that on its own outweighs the licensing costs of Office.

Another problem with Open Office is that many programs, such as Quicken, ACT! and MYOB, integrate with MS Office but don't with OO. This creates headaches for users and support.

The ultimate killer is compatibility. Brendan makes the point that you have to have one machine still running MS Office so you can make sure outgoing documents have all their features and formatting.

I found this problem personally early this week. I tried running a presentation I'd created in Powerpoint 2003 on my laptop running Open Office. It worked but it looked pretty ordinary and I couldn't have used it.

Of course, none of these problems are faults with Open Office. It's a fine suite of programs that's unbeatable at the price. I'd really recommend it if you are after a full featured office suite and you aren't fussed about sending documents to other users.

If you are a business though I just couldn't recommend it unless you are the type that like living on the bleeding edge with all the pain that goes with that.

Trusting the IT industry

The overwhelming impression I got from yesterday's small business IT seminar it was the tech industry doesn't have the trust of small business; too often they've been burned by bad techs, bad software and bad hardware.

One lady told how she gets salespeople to write a personal guarantee before she buys anything, for big ticket items she sometimes gets three signatures on her piece of paper.

That's a pretty depressing state of affairs that our industry is in this and it's difficult to see how this is going to change.

Given our governments have a hands off policy on industry regulation, I can't see a mandatory licensing system being introduced as I suggested in my last post. So that means anyone who "knows something about computers" can hang out their shingle and claim to be a computer tech, web designer or programmer.

But just to blame the techs for this situation would be very unfair, the bigger players have allowed this situation to develop.

We really need software and hardware vendors to take responsibility for their products they release, we need them to take quality control seriously and to stop using paying customers as their crash test dummies.

Along with getting vendors to understand their moral and legal obligations, we need to get computer stores to understand their responsibilities. The bigger ones they are, the more it seems they try to wriggle around the law.

This "stuff the customer" mindset seems to run deep in the industry. I'm not sure if it's going to take governments to step in or the courts, but sooner or later someone is going to say "enough is enough".

Technician qualifications

I had my first Top 10 IT Solutions for Small Business at Parramatta yesterday.

Given it was the first presentation I've done on the topic it went well, apart from the boring Powerpoint presentation.

During the Q&A one thing became very clear, a lot of small business owners are very frustrated with finding competent, reliable and trustworthy techs.

There's a lot of reasons for this, the main one is most computer techs are "technicians suffering a entrepreneurial spasm" as the E-myth writer Micheal Gerber puts it. When they find how tough this business can be their service, and possibly sanity, quickly suffers.

One area I think we have to look at is the licensing of computer techs. Just as motor mechanics, hair dressers and plumbers need to show they have a base level of skills, so to should computer technicians.

The base level should be the Certificate IV in IT Support. I'd like to see it coupled with a formal trainee or apprenticeship.

This won't get rid of all the dills and shonks, after all there are still some crook mechanics and plumbers out there, it will at least give some level of confidence among consumers and employers that a tech does have a base level of skills.

2Clix sues Whirlpool

The accounting software company 2Clix is suing Whirlpool, the Australian broadband forum, for malicious falsehood (the corporate equivalent of libel) over a couple of threads in the forum.

I'm sure the management of 2Clix have some very good legal advice that such an action will be successful, but from a business point of view this is a disaster.

Doing this draws more attention to the problems, real or otherwise, in their product.

I have a lot of sympathy for software developers writing product for the consumer market, a single Microsoft patch can bring their product crashing down. For accounting programs like 2Clix they are also at the mercy of whatever brain damaged ideas come out of the tax office or government.

There are almost 200,000 registered members of Whirlpool and probably that number again who read it without signing up. The vast majority of those had no idea what 2Clix was or that it had any problems until today.

If 2Clix really has suffered $150,000 in damages from a couple of obscure threads on Whirlpool, the mind boggles at what the damages they are going to suffer when the industry press will pick up on this story later today and the mainstream media run with it over the next few days.

Small Business IT mistake 10: No disaster recovery

I've left disaster recovery for last because it frightens and depresses me. Almost every business I see has some flaw in how they protect their business data.

Most businesses don't understand that computer hardware is cheap and easy to replace; it's the data stored on the system that is valuable. For most businesses, losing all their data would be the end of the enterprise.

Backing up data is the most fundamental part of a disaster recovery plan. But that’s not the whole picture with disaster recovery.

The aim of a disaster recovery plan is to get your computer systems back on line as quickly as possible should a disaster strike. That disaster could be a fire, a break in, a flood or even the building collapsing.

So it's more than just the data; you need something to save the data onto, you need somewhere to store the data, you need something to read the data. You need to be able to access everything quickly should the worst happen.

It's probably a good idea to keep at least part of that locked cabinet full of software and folders we discussed earlier at home rather than the office.

Until the rise of cheap external hard drives, most business data backups were done onto tape. Tapes were comparatively cheap, stored a lot of data and were portable.

The only problem was they failed as often as not, the mental scars of my own encounters with this are why this subject fills with me with dread.

The disaster recovery plan has to include rotating the backups. If you rely on one drive or tape, your whole system will fail if that drive or tape fails. Ideally you'd have twenty of the things working on daily weekly and monthly schedules that mean your data is saved for a year at a time.

Most businesses though balk at this cost and that's understandable. A compromise is often two or three backup devices where one is plugged into the computer while the others are taken home by the boss or the secretary.

This means you'll lose a weeks work should the building burn down. For most small businesses this is a reasonable trade off between costs. For some though, the cost of re-creating a week's work is prohibitive so the cost of a few more $200 external drives is worthwhile.

Disaster recovery is an absolutely key area for small business IT. The smaller your business is, the more your data and intellectual property is important to you.

It's critical you discuss a disaster recovery plan with your IT consultant and make sure you have a working one in place.

Small Business IT mistake 9: No training

I never ceased to be amazed at how we don’t train staff on how to use computers. As business owners we wouldn't dream of not training staff to use a forklift or lathe, let alone give a company car to an employee without a driver’s license.

Yet almost no staff get training in using computers.

I remember clearly the first day I faced a personal computer. I was sat down in front a computer on it and told to get on with it. It took me half an hour to turn the thing on, it was nearly a week before I got anything productive done.

People are wonderfully inventive and curious beasts. Most folk will eventually figure out how to do something by trial and error. The problem is this leads to bad and inefficient habits in the office.

Couple this with the self taught office guru and you have a problem like I described earlier; those bad habits start getting very expensive.

Training's surprisingly easy to find. There are the local newspaper and Yellow Pages, but many computer trainers there share the problem with the local computer tech that anyone can claim to be one.

Far better in my experience are the local community colleges or the corporate training companies. Corporate training is expensive and sometimes their instructors leave something to be desired but the courses are usually well structured. The local community college is cheaper but it usually requires staff to attend out of hours.

There is a question about offsite versus onsite training. Onsite training is cheaper and uses the equipment that the staff work on every day. In my view, offsite training is best for staff as it gets them away from distractions.

While offsite training adds to the cost of computers and staff, it's money well spent for businesses of all sizes as it improves the productivity and morale of staff immensely.

From the businesses owner’s point of view training increases the return on their IT investment dramatically.