Voice Over IP Solutions seem to be maturing. This article from Technology & Business at ZDNet reviews some handsets providing VOIP capability, and almost gets one thinking about such things. Unless you have a real need, I am not convinced that the technology is mature enough just yet to recommend wholesale adoption by clients, although for clients with specific requirements and expertise it may be a good solution.
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SAP: Just Look at me Now…
I have had the opportunity over the last couple of weeks to take a look at what SAP calls its “MySAP All-in-One” solution. All-in-One is essentially the MySAP software combined with the skills, expertise and intellectual property of the business partner/software vendor (disclaimer: my firm, BDO Kendalls, sells, supports and implements the MySAP software, although I don’t personally benefit from the thing).
A few years ago I would have told my clients to run screaming in the other direction (or at least think very, very carefully before proceeding with any ERP, including SAP – particularly after the experience of the Queensland government with SAP). In fact, I once had a good hearty laugh when SAP tendered for a software solution I was advising on – the client’s budget didn’t cover Stage 1.
However, it would seem that the lesson has been learnt, and MySAP’s focus is on delivering business solutions in the context of the customisation required. Time was, a salesperson would glibly state, “yes, that’s possible, just do the customisation” – and somehow completely omitting the phrase “but I don’t know that that’s a particularly smart thing to do because it’s really expensive and adds bugs and makes upgrades difficult and…”.
Of course the difficulties were not always, I think, due to “good” salespeople. Some of my best friends are salespeople. Businesses at one time felt that it was worth the effort to change software to meet their business processes – but neglected to adjust the projected cost by the requisite risk factor.
At any rate, if you are an SME thinking about the possible benefits an ERP can bring, you could do far worse than check out MySAP All-in-One. It’s a rapidly shrinking market since Peoplesoft bought JD Edwards and Oracle bought Peoplesoft – but that’s the way of the world.
Bespoke software? Take two tablets and call me in the morning.
So far this year I have been to see several clients to review their approach to information systems. Almost all have struggled with the in-house development of software – in many cases a lot of effort has been put into developing in-house software, and although it must have sounded like a good idea at the time, they have come to regret it eventually.
In my humble opinion (and I haven’t really researched this one too much yet) there are usually several factors that end up ensuring that it all turns to tears:
- It’s far too hard for internal software development staff to say “no” to any request for assistance from other areas within the business (and IT people are usually there to help, so they don’t like disappointing people).
- Our natural optimism operates to say that to do the development work required will be much easier than it ever actually is. Eventually, we learn.
- Developing software is really, really interesting. Documenting it and writing down what you did isn’t so easy – and besides, there’s always a new project to get to.
- My final factor as to why an in-house development approach ends up giving corporate heartburn is that few organisations can afford to provide the real tools that are needed, and support the large development staff necessary to allow people to bounce ideas off each other. The natural evolutionary progression of this is that few good tools are available to the development staff – ergo, staff leave to go to more prosperous waters (and since it was never documented, it’s time to cue the violin music for all that investment that sails into the sunset).
For my clients, I often say to have a Bex and a good lie down before you embark on an internal software development project. And if it still sounds like a good idea tomorrow morning, then you should see your GP (because those symptoms are still persisting).
It’s not that all in-house software development goes to hell in a handbasket, but it is awfully difficult to do internal software development well on any large scale, and to have the discipline and the methodologies available is often beyond the capacity of a lot of my clients here. If you ever do think about writing substantial amounts of bespoke software, be sure to recognise the risks that come with that approach.
I am beginning to wonder if you aren’t better off adapting sometimes an open-source solution that does 80% of what you need for a small commitment of work (and my presentation on Tuesday night, again, talked about some of the issues you might come across there).
Hmm. I suggest I’ll need to write an article on this topic one of these days. Although, maybe I just did that.
Pits, Traps and Windfalls of Open Source Software (For Business)
One of the things that I have often come across when consulting with clients is, obviously, the phenomenon of open-source software, and next week (17 May 2005) I will be presenting to the local CPA Australia IT discussion group on the topic of Pits, Traps and Windfalls of Open Source Software.
Now, I happen to think that open source software is better than the proverbial sliced bread on a picnic, but it does come with some real dangers hidden with its benefits. A real commercial issue is that, for software that is “free”, no purchase order is required and a business can find itself heavily reliant upon the open source software (and the skills of the person who knows how to use it) without any of the usual gatekeeper controls to ensure people understand what it’s all about (many businesses require a business case to purchase new software – but, no outlay means no business case means no commercial considerations are part of the decision).
And once you get out of the top five or ten open source projects in a particular software category, your ability to find someone that can actually use the software decreases markedly (which usually means that, once you find them, you’ve got to pay them quite well thanks very much). So fairly soon, and without any real red flags to indicate that it’s happening, the business can become very reliant upon the skills of one single solitary person (who may or may not be a good bloke, but is still susceptible to the all-too-common “hit by a bus” problem).
But, I use Open Office at home (fairly seamlessly for most documents) and we do sponsor open-source software such as DotNetNuke to our clients, as it’s a category killer in open source portal tools, and is based upon some standard technologies. I think it will always be interesting to run the numbers for clients and see which way they are better off. And this is exactly why I’m presenting next week on exactly this topic. So if you’re in the Brisbane area, please feel free to drop in and say “hi” by registering and perhaps discuss the finer points or two of this topic in the business context.