Computing - BlackBerry Storm Firmware Leaked as RIM Sales Soar

A number of folks are aware that I have been going through a fair amount of angst over whether to swap out my Blackberry 8830. I was intrigued by the Blackberry Storm. After playing with it for a while and reading just about every review I could find, I held off and went shopping. I'm a fan of Verizon Wireless service and coverage area so was reluctant to change carriers.

The problem was that the other phones I was lusting for were on the AT&T Wireless network. Both the Blackberry Bold and the Apple iPhone are terrific devices. After fooling around with the iPhone and wanting so much to love it, I bought a Bold and began using it while keeping my Verizon phone and account. The Bold is the best smartphone I've ever used. I just am not convinced it's good enough to woo me from Verizon.

So, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to buy the Storm and try it for a few weeks as well. I'll see if I can learn to cope with the lack of a physical keyboard. If so, I'll ship back the Bold and stay on the Big Red Network. Since I live with my Blackberry in hand from morning to night, it's a tough decision!

Bottom-line: it's a great time for smartphones and smartphone addicts!

Computing - BlackBerry Storm Firmware Leaked as RIM Sales Soar: "

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Tuesday, December 23rd 


BlackBerry Storm Firmware Leaked as RIM Sales Soar

By Patricia Resende
December 19, 2008 10:07AM

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New firmware for the BlackBerry Storm 9530 has been leaked on the Internet one day after Research in Motion reported a jump in third-quarter revenue. Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said RIM add"

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Microsoft to Google: Get Off of My Cloud - BusinessWeek

Good Sunday morning! Cloud computing- where is it in the hype cycle for you?

My little consultancy makes use of Google Apps so we're comfortable with the concept at some level. But then we're frugal (those of you who've worked with me will recall that "my favorite price point is free") and tech-savvy. That said, email, calendaring, and document sharing is our lifeblood and we require a reliable, easy-to-use service which we get from Google and I suspect we'd get with Microsoft's Live Office...or Office Live or whatever it's called.

The latest announcement from Amazon.com regarding their Cloudfront initiative continues the launch of successively more complex services available to anyone, not just the big guys. In some ways, it's an incredible democratization of computing. We've moved from email for the masses a la Hotmail, Yahoo mail, Gmail, etc to some fairly sophisticated office suite replacements to what, when I was at Getty Images, was a key to delivering revenue- caching content cose to the buyer. No, Amazon's Cloudfront isn't a replacement or real alternative to the likes of Akamai...yet. I also don't foresee a day within the planning horizon for most IT shops (3 years) where their ERP system will be in the cloud but it does seem clear that more and more ancillary functions can be moved to the cloud...and soon.

An example- need to archive large amounts of data in "near-line" or off-line storage but struggling to get the CapEx approved in the current economic environment? Is if feasible to use EMC's Atmos service? Certainly EMC knows a bit about reliable storage for the enterprise. What hinders you from considering it?

Bottom-line: The savvy CIO or CTO should be actively working to figure out how to take advantage of this trend now because it's got the potential for real cost and time-to-market benefits.

Agree/disagree?

Microsoft to Google: Get Off of My Cloud - BusinessWeek: "
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COMPUTERS November 21, 2008, 9:49PM EST text size: TT
Microsoft to Google: Get Off of My Cloud
The world's top software maker plans to build about 20 state-of-the-art data centers as it tries to outpace cloud computing rival Google, BusinessWeek has learned

By Peter Burrows

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CEOs vs. CIOs: IT gets no respect

While the study below is good news for my business partners and me, it's still a tough pill to swallow after all these years. The article is a good read and points some interesting areas of needed improvement.

Take a look at this quote: "About three-quarters of respondents see technology as important in improving enterprise competitiveness, but about 60% reported IT as being effective at that goal." A) only 75% of CEO's see technology as important to improving competitiveness? B) only 6 in 10 say that IT is effective in helping their enterprise business partners to be more competitive.

It's no wonder that CIO turnover remains at such high levels. Which camp are you in? Does your CEO agree with you?

CEOs vs. CIOs: IT gets no respect: "
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11.11.2008 kl 22:55 | IDG News Service
CEOs vs. CIOs: IT gets no respect
IT leaders looking for a pat on the back for delivering much-needed technology to the business could be waiting a long time. Survey results released this week by Forrester Research show that while a majority of business executives depend on technology to do their jobs, they don't credit IT for providing those high-tech resources.

(Via .)

Just a quick post in part because of the number of comments about not posting! You know who you are! ;-)

Last week, we announced that the new CIO at Celestica was joining the team.  I couldn't be happier with the selection of Mary Gendron to replace me and to work with her on the transition.

When I began the engagement with Celestica, I was given three mandates - Fix IT (what we eventually dubbed "Stabilize"), create and implement a strategic plan and roadmap for IT (Standardize and Optimize), and replace myself.  The team's been very successful with the first two and now I can safely say we've upgraded by executing the last bit.  

In the process, I've relearned some lessons about leadership change.

Rule number 1: always replace yourself with people smarter than you!  It keeps people from asking why you bothered and others from doing it for you!

Rule number 2: never underestimate the impact of leadership changes even when you've carefully obeyed rule number 1.

Even with really strong leadership teams in place, change at the top is stressful on the organization. That said, it's a pleasure to watch the leadership team do what they do so well which is lead through change.

I've had lots of questions about what I'm doing next.  The short answer is I'll be with Celestica for another couple of months on the current plan, helping with transition issues and working on some projects that I think are very interesting!  Stay tuned!

CIO 100 Conference

CIO 100 Conference: ""

So this week I'm off to the CIO 100 Conference at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, CO. Celestica was selected as one of the award winners so I'm going to pick-up the hardware.

This is the second time I've been CIO or CTO of an organization that won, having received the award soon after I joined Getty Images in 2004.

I take no credit for that one. This time around, I'll take some credit. No credit is due me for dreaming up the winning application. If I can take credit for anything it is for ensuring that the great work done by my team and Celestica's Supply Chain organization, including Exec VP John Boucher received the appropriate recognition within the IT community.

Too many CIO's still don't understand the value of marketing their team's wins. Whether it's participating in or as I prefer to think of it, competing in the Information Week 500 or the CIO 100 awards, there's great value for your organization's morale and self-esteem.

Everyone inside the organization, both users and IT professionals, knows all the ways and places that things could be better. Often though, when you really benchmark, you can find many things to be proud off. Receiving an Information Week 500 ranking or winning a CIO 100 award is one way of demonstrating that your team is succeeding. Winning has a way of making everyone feel a little better about the place they work and their role in the team. Just like in sports, when you feel like you are successful and capable, you become more so. There's definitely a halo effect which can be leveraged with your team, your business partners, customers and suppliers.

I hope to see you there!

Google Blasted over Gmail, Google Apps Outages - Cloud Computing

Hello! Long time no write! I suppose I should have posted a "Gone for the summer" banner on the blog site. That, however, would have made it seem like I've been on vacation. Basically, I've been busy! Enough people have pinged me about not writing that I figured I better get back to it. Not only that but having Net News Reader show my blog as a dinosaur hurt. So here we go....

I've seen a number of posts in the blogosphere this week discussing whether the very public problems of Gmail/Google Apps and Apple's MobileMe signify that SaaS (Software as a Service) is not yet ready for prime time. Given that I'm headed to Colorado Springs, CO in a ten days to pick up a CIO 100 award on behalf of Celestica for a SaaS application built on top of e2open, I thought I'd raise the topic here.

Seems to me that this area of innovation is no different than any other. Risk must be explicitly considered in the adoption of any technology, new or not. A simple formula I use when planning a personal flight is: risk of something bad happening times the impact when it does. Small risk times big potential impact makes it a big risk and likely a bad idea without a lot of thought being given to mitigation. The same brief calculation can save your project and maybe your job.

It never ceases to amaze me how rarely this simple bit of planning is done by technologists at all levels. Failing to do so, failing to ask this question in project reviews at least obliquely can cost your company dearly. Often it seems that we just don't want to discuss the risk level for fear of getting a project cancelled. We're invested in seeing it through to the end. We WANT it to succeed. Discussing the risk, planning for the potential for failure is a way to decrease the probability for significant impact in the event your risk comes to light.

Clearly Salesforce.com has proved that SaaS can work. e2open as well. Right tools for the right application.

What's your take?

Google Blasted over Gmail, Google Apps Outages - Cloud Computing: "
Cloud Computing - eWeek

Google Blasted over Gmail, Google Apps Outages
( Page 1 of 13 )

Google isn't supposed to go down. Yet Google Gmail and Google Apps went down for 15 hours Aug. 6 and 7. And on Aug. 11, Gmail went down for 2 hours. Users made their discontent known in discussion boards and blogs, raising the broader question: If they can't rely on Google as their Web platform, who can they rely on?
by Clint Boulton


Google Blasted over Gmail,
Google Apps Outages
By Clint Boulton
Next: Has Google Set the Bar Too High? >>



Discuss Google Blasted Over Gmail, Google Apps Outages
 
Clint Boulton here. Are users making too much of these "

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Synchronizing Life

At Celestica, it's Lotus Notes and Domino with my Blackberry (8830 Curve on VZW for me) for walking around. At home, I (mostly) use Mac Mail plus iCal for managing my life. To connect the two calendar systems I use Missing Sync by Mark Space. I've begun playing with Thunderbird 3 Alpha and like it quite a bit but there's no calendar support for Lightning/Sunbird/GCal/iCal.

The problem is that while the Blackberry/BES occasionally have their issues, iCal/MissingSync/Apple's Sync Services appear to be incredibly fragile and require way too much of my time to manage. Resetting sync history, backup/restore of iCal...it's nuts.

So my question is: how do you handle this? My personal life is busy enough that I need a calendar I can count on that connects to my Blackberry. The BB rarely leaves my side once I leave the house. It's mine, not the company's so I'm comfortable putting whatever I want on there. Ideally, I'd only upload to the BES that non-business time is blocke but that's asking too much.

I've also found that Plaxo can be a life saver. It seems to handle basic synchronization with aplomb while syncing to just about everything other then a BES.

What calendar or set of calendars do you use for your personal life and how do you synchronize both parts of your life??

This isn't at all about IT (I suppose I could come up with some clever analogy but that I'd be making it up) but I couldn't resist. I love my Alpine navigation unit in my car. I fly with no fewer than 3 Garmin GPS navigators. I use a Garmin Nuvi whenever I'm renting in any city in North America. Clearly I like the utility of GPS-based navigators but disconnecting your brain in the process can make for a very bad day...especially when flying.  The photo is from the related article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Driver puts faith in GPS, shears off top of charter bus on bridge - Autoblog: "
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Driver puts faith in GPS, shears off top of charter bus on bridge

Posted Apr 18th 2008 7:29PM by Jonathon Ramsey
Filed under: Gadgets, Etc., Tech


As of today, we're taking bets to see how long it will take before people realize that 'GPS' does not stand for 'Auto Pilot.' The latest 'But the GPS told me to...' story is brought to you by a charter bus driver in Seattle. Piloting a coach through the Washington Arboretum -- as the GPS instructed him -- the driver ignored, or didn't see, or didn't believe (take your pick) the flashing lights and sign warning him that his 11-foot-high bus was too tall for the looming 9-foot concrete overpass.

You can see how the story ends. The overpass ended up with some superficial damage, the coach got a"

(Via .)

Current Reading

OK, so I haven't published anything since late February! How did that happen and where did the time go?????
Let me just say I've been busy. To get back in the habit, I thought I'd answer a question someone put to me in a recent meeting with some of my team- What am I reading these days?

Other than the usual list of a dozen plus magazines and 75+ newsfeeds, I'm reading "Lean Six Signa for Service" by Michael George and "The Brain That Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge.

I'd read the Lean Six Sigma book a couple of years ago I guess and thought about it more in the context of applying it to a service business. At the time I was running Content Operations at Getty Images and wanted to get a better understanding of how to apply Lean and Six Sigma, traditionally used in manufacturing but infrequently in a service business. This time around, sparked by the comments and questions from a colleague at Celestica, I began to revisit the book with an eye to applying these same techniques to IT itself. The more I read, the more fascinated I am by the idea. I'll write more later but there's a lot here.

The other book, on brain plasticity, is simply fascinating and I recommend it highly as an easy read. And I promise to get back on track here.

New Research Result: Cold Boot Attacks on Disk Encryption

I'm not sure what to make of this exactly. Having read the short form in the blog linked below, it seems to me that the exploit is remarkably simple to implement. In the past, for most users on Win XP machines in the shops I ran, the sleep/hibernate modes were turned off as the laptop often wouldn't come back up cleanly. However, Vista seems to have fixed that and I often leave my Macbook in the sleep state for quick restart. On my personal machines, I use either Bitlocker or FileVault (as appropriate to the OS) thinking that coupled with a strong password, I was safe. Effective immediately I will stop using sleep modes.

The bigger question for me as a CIO is how do we respond to protect our data as it wanders around outside the relative safety of the corporate environment. Given the significant negative impact every time someone "loses" a laptop with personal and corporate data on it, like here and here, the risk is real.

What are you doing about it? Is the risk real or is this another lab experiment unlikely to propagate into the wild?

Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » New Research Result: Cold Boot Attacks on Disk Encryption: "Freedom to Tinker
… is your freedom to understand, discuss, repair, and modify the technological devices you own.

New Research Result: Cold Boot Attacks on Disk Encryption
February 21st, 2008 by Ed Felten
Today eight colleagues and I are releasing a significant new research result. We show that disk encryption, the standard approach to protecting sensitive data on laptops, can be defeated by relatively simple methods. We demonstrate our methods by using them to defeat three popular disk encryption products: BitLocker, which comes with Windows Vista; FileVault, which comes with MacOS X; and dm-crypt, which is used with Linux. The research team includes J. Alex Halderman, Seth D. Schoen, Nadia Heninger, William Clarkson, William Paul, Joseph A. Calandrino, Ariel J. Feldman, Jacob Appelbaum, and Edward W. Felten.

Our site has links to the paper, an explanatory video, and other materials.

The root of the problem lies in an unexpected property of today’s "

(Via .)

Stats

One of the interesting things about writing something like this blog is the analytics of who visits. Recently, readers from Peru began to pop up. Not sure what drove them there but it's great to see.

I had the chance in August 2006 to visit Peru and hike the Inca Trail. Wow! Took the 4 day, officially sanctioned trip. It was well worth the effort. 13,000' (4000m plus) is way up there but the spectacular scenery of the Andes, the incredible friendliness of everyone we met there and the stunning remains of the Incan civilization made it more than worthwhile.

So, welcome to my Peruvian readers!

Creating Organizations

We announced a new organization structure today at Celestica. I'm always amazed at how long it takes from conception to announcement and how much is left to finish the reshaping of large, complex organizations. By now, I shouldn't be surprised but....

The goal in this case is to better align IT to the business (novel concept!) while flattening out the organization. This creates more opportunities for leaders to be identified and provide the drive and momentum needed to create really amazing solutions that the business, our customers and their customers require. I'm excited by the leadership team that's in place. Great thinkers who are enthusiastic about their teams, the business and the challenge ahead.

The announcement isn't the end of the hard work of reshaping an organization; rather it is just the end of the beginning. Now the fun begins!

Seattle CIO Forum II

About half a dozen CIO's and IT leaders from the Puget Sound area met today at the Harbor Club in Seattle. This month's topic was the relationship between CIO's and CFO's. I'd asked my friends, Liz Huebner and Mike Anderson- two outstanding CFO's and all-around great people- to participate in a panel discussion.

I teed it up by asking both Liz and Mike to describe the things that are key drivers in the life of a CFO, especially a public company officer. Their reply was that the absolute responsibility for the company's "numbers" and the integrity of them, leads them to being deeply involved in knowing a great deal about the entire company and its processes. This can bring tension sometimes when the CIO is asked for the Why and How of the company's technology. The key? Don't get defensive, look at things from the other side of the question and help your CFO to understand the business metrics, drivers, risks and alternatives. It's not an attack, it's a need to know.

I had to reluctantly call a halt to the discussion as we were running out of time. Just a superb session and my hat's off to my CFO guests and thanks to the CIO's who participated. I learn something every time I'm with you all!

I'm going to try to spend more time relaying more of the conversation in future postings. I believe that one of the absolute keys to success for CIO's is developing and nurturing a strong relationship with the CFO and one that is so often mis-managed.

EXTREME COMMUTING

OK, truth be told this post has nothing to do with being a CIO or even a member of technology community. It has nothing to do with which airline I fly on, or how lame I think most of what the TSA does to the flying public (see this article from the NY Times which said it perfectly). It has nothing to do with the fact that I'm in between owning an airplane, cranky about it and would rather fly myself even when that's not feasible....like Seattle to Toronto in a single day.

Sitting in seat 16C on Air Canada's flight 540 from Seattle to Toronto this morning, I thought I had it made. I generally like the AC flights as they have reasonably new aircraft, I get my own personal entertainment system in the seat back in front of me and the crews are friendly and polite. This particularly flight was probably no more than 2/3rds full and the seat next to me was empty. Yes! I thought as I moved from the treasured aisle seat to the window for takeoff. I like watching takeoff and landing- not as much as when I get to fly the plane but still it's the best part of the flight. The trouble began shortly after takeoff as the guy in front of me pushed his seat back as far as it would go. His girlfriend next to him did the same thing. Now, I've got the nifty entertainment screen about 6 inches from my face for the next 3 1/2 hours. Way to close for comfort not to mention being to cross my legs or move.

My complaint comes in two parts: first, what in the world are the airlines thinking, specifying a configuration like that on a fairly small airplane (Embraer 190) anyways? A seat that reclines such that the passenger behind has to scrunch down to see his book? or meal?? Is it just to make the entire commercial air travel experience worse than it already is? Secondly, what goes through the heads of people like the folks in front of me? She looked over her shoulder to see how close she was....perhaps because I had to push her seat forward just to uncross my legs. It's the same thinking that compels some to talk on their cellphones in public places about the most private things at volumes that are beyond being ignored. It's a kind of incredible selfishness I guess. "I can put the seat back as far as it goes because I am able to, your concerns for personal space be damned." Just one of those things that makes an otherwise boring commute of 5 hours and 3 time zones a little more stressful.

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Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The network is the data center

Most IT professionals will remember Nicholas Carr for his argument that IT Doesn't Matter. I find his blog an interesting read most days. Today's reference really caught my attention. Like most global CIO's I know, I'm a firm believer in reducing the number of data centers we operate out of in order to take advantage of economies of scale and reduce the overall complexity. As you can see in the snippet below though, Sun's Brian Cinque articulates a goal of......zero data centers by 2015! Yikes! Now there's a BHAG!

I think the underlying assumption has validity. I don't want to run data centers and networks just like I don't want to generate my own electricity. I want what I can do with their output. I'm planning to get my company's data center footprint down to 2 or 3 in the next couple of years. Zero data centers, now that's a better number. Architecting for that kind of future will give us much more flexibility I think regardless of whether we get to zero or not. It'll make disaster recovery, technology upgrades and cost variability much more achievable and realistic.

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The network is the data center: "
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The network is the data center
JANUARY 11, 2008
In an ironic twist, some of today's leading manufacturers of server computers are also among the companies moving most aggressively to reduce their need for servers and other hardware components. Hewlett-Packard, for instance, is in the midst of a project to slash the number of data centers it operates from 85 to 6 and to cut the number of servers it uses by 30 percent. Now, Sun Microsystems is upping the stakes. Brian Cinque, the data center architect in Sun's IT department, says the company's goal is to close down all its internal data centers by 2015. 'Did I just say 0 data centers?' he writes on his blog.'Yes! Our goal is to reduce our entire data center presence by 2015.'

Cinque provides few details - he says he'll flesh out the plans in future blog posts - but it's clear that he anticipates that the software-as-a-service model, and related virtua"

(Via .)

Pining for the fjords: Microsoft bids $1.2 billion for Norwegian search company

Wow! Having made a leap of faith to incorporating the FAST search technology into the e-commerce platform while at Getty Images, I never thought they'd end up as a Billion Dollar (Microsoft) Baby! In seriousness, one of our concerns in signing up as a FAST customer was their size and could they survive against the likes of Google. Guess that question's been laid to rest.

At Getty Images, the focus of the search engine was to improve the e-commerce search capabilities. It would appear that Microsoft's focus wasn't on external search but inward-facing enterprise search.

How many companies are using enterprise search internally today? If you are currently using or planning to deploy it, how did you go about justifying it? What considerations for protection of the company's confidential information were made? Certainly enterprise search is a need if we are going to be able to develop the kinds of flexible, "now" information platforms needed in the future. That said, for most companies I suspect it's not high on the shopping list for 2008. What's your take?

Pining for the fjords: Microsoft bids $1.2 billion for Norwegian search company: "

Enterprise search is one of the bigger holes in Microsoft's enterprise software line. Now the company plans to plug the gap with a $1.2 billion purchase.

Read More...

"

(Via Ars Technica.)

What CEO's want from CIO's

CIO.com recently posted an interesting article about the above subject. It was one of the better lists of practical, "why doesn't everyone get this" advice I've seen on the subject.

I posted a reply agreeing with all of the points save one: the reporting relationship does matter. As I said in the post, "If you signed up to report to the CFO, then no whining. That said, where you report foretells the kind of goals and objectives you are likely to have to adopt. Not 100% accurate but certainly a leading indicator. There are certainly CFO's who are very good at focusing not just on the cost side of the equation and who don't see IT as simply a cost to be squeezed. So I start from the position that given a choice, I want to report to either the COO or CEO. The focus will tend to be more balanced with plenty of opportunity to impact top line growth because you are expected to get involved there. There's going to be less resistance. Becoming strategic, having a "seat at the table" is doable regardless of where you report if you add value. It's that simple but it's much more work depending on where you start."

In the end, if you add value as perceived by your peers and the CEO, you'll find yourself participating in the key, strategic decisions of your organization. It's that simple. People and organizations tend not to waste talent. The question is how long will that take? In an organization where IT is viewed as a difference maker, you have a leg up. If it's not viewed that way, the road is longer. For 2008 then, what's your plan?

Happy New Year!

Here's wishing everyone a wonderful 2008.