Posted by Jeff Papows on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 @ 08:41 AM
It was impossible to miss this week's news about Apple's earnings and its new tablet computer this week. While I can remember the less a darker time for them, these days when I think of Apple I think of the enormous success of its apps store that inspired an entire community of developers -- and vendors for that matter -- to foster innovation based on common interests and a market demand for a broader array of application choices.
So I got to thinking why should the apps store developers have all the fun? While open source has its communities and standards bodies are designed to advance the industry using the same lingua franca, why couldn't there be an apps store for enterprise software?
Hear me out on this one.
What if you could develop enterprise software, test it out and get it validated through an unbiased third party that would help you bring it to market. The industry wins through collaborative efforts, vendors win by picking up a sales channel and most importantly the customer wins because the software is certified and validated and will actually work as described on the vendor's website and would likely be improved upon since competition breeds innovation.
Now of course this enterprise apps store wouldn't work for everybody but you've got to think there are some niches that would benefit from this model. Off the top of my head, I could see a place for vendors in the financial services or healthcare industries that offer compliance software. After all, those rules and regulations are already established and the purchasing decisions/competitive differentiators are usually based on how easy they are to use, how secure they are and how well they work.
We're already seeing shades of this with the apps.gov website for federal agencies that's designed to streamline the software procurement process and ensure consistency across different departments (which I actually addressed in a recent post, ‘Why I.T. Governance Will Remain a Top Priority in 2010.')
It's certainly something to think about.
Posted by Jeff Papows on Mon, Jan 18, 2010 @ 03:47 PM
By now, I assume that everybody in the industry is aware of Google potentially ceasing operations in China. Given the cyber attacks on gmail accounts that were supposedly initiated by the Chinese government, it's clear that this story will continue to play out over the next several months. We've already heard from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton stating that the issue has "raised very serious concerns" along with other daily reports on the topic.
While there are many different ways to view this evolving story, the piece that I find most troubling is today's news that indicates that Google insiders may have aided the Chinese government in hacking the gmail accounts of human rights activists.
The tech crowd is pointing to vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and there is a solid argument about the ability to use IE to hack into the gmail accounts. However, blaming Microsoft technology for the security compromises is about as productive as blaming the gasoline after the arsonist has set the fire.The issue that this whole Google China incident raises in my mind is the role of the government in the Internet and where IT governance intersects the two.
Now I don't expect nor do I want any government to step in and start overseeing the usage of the Internet and search engine results. Yet with the latest news that the cyber attacks are being traced back to insiders, it calls into question the amount of IT governance that was in place.
Could governance have prevented the attacks? No, as that's a far-fetched and unrealistic claim. However, with the right amount of governance in place, rogue applications and activities may not have been allowed to infiltrate the infrastructure. In this instance, it may have been able to alert Google China's managers to potentially compromising behavior before it put the entire operation at risk including the 700 employees in the country.
If Google does cease operations in China, the implications will be pretty far reaching given the search engine giant's presence in the country and its recent expansion into music and the mobile device market. It would be a shame for the company to lose the momentum it's been building in China over since 2005 yet it would be an even bigger shame if it was forced to compromise it's "Do No Evil" mission statement.
I'm going to keep watching this story, as there's likely to be more that unfolds. Meanwhile, I can't help but wonder how much of a difference governance would have been able to make in minimizing the impact of the situation.
Posted by Jeff Papows on Thu, Jan 14, 2010 @ 11:44 AM
I'm noticing that a lot more eyes seem to be on governance these days. Joe McKendrick dedicated some airtime to it in his recent "SOA in Action" blog posts and Dion Hinchcliffe just did an interesting take in his post, "A New Vision for SOA Governance: A Focus on the Social Aspect."
Hinchcliffe brings up the very human aspects of SOA that can make or break an initiative. This can be said about many IT projects that are going to have a widespread effect on a company. I.T Governance is certainly no exception, especially when you consider the old adage, ‘everybody wants governance but nobody wants to be governed.'
Of course, there have other views that don't recognize the importance of governance to the sustainability of the organization as I noted in a previous post calling out David Linthicum's erroneous assessment that cloud computing will put an end to the need to design time governance.
However, the point is that governance is moving out from behind-the-scenes to front and center as we enter the economic recovery zone. And I don't think that it's too much of a stretch to say that the recession has heightened the awareness of and greater need for governance. Here are two main reasons why:
1. Mergers and acquisitions: the speed and size of the recent M&A deals, especially the market consolidation in the financial services sector, is requiring IT efficiently integrate various back-end systems in an effort to accelerate the creation of newly formed entities. With so much at risk, it makes sense that best practices and governance policies are adhered to during the extensive integration process.
2. Cloud computing: with all of the recent debates about the risks associated with cloud computing as outlined in the InformationWeek article, "Don't Rush to Cloud Computing," there are still many companies and government agencies that are adopting the cloud as part of their IT strategy. Governance can help reduce this risk, especially when it's introduced at design time, so that applications and services are based on more solid foundations before they are extended to a cloud environment.
As the IT industry prepares for recovery, most recently forecasted by industry analysts at Forrester citing that hardware and software will bounce back in 2010, governance will very likely continue to be a focal point.
While the road to recovery will continue to be a bumpy ride, I'm looking forward to it.
Posted by Jeff Papows on Mon, Jan 04, 2010 @ 04:12 PM
After a few days away from the office, I came back with renewed enthusiasm for 2010.
As I made my way through my inbox and got caught up on the latest industry news, I was surprised by David Linthicum's Infoworld blog entry titled, "Cloud Computing Will Kill These 3 Technologies." In his post, Linthicum states that cloud computing will kill design time governance.
What makes the blogosphere so great is that we're all entitled to voice our opinions. So I will now share mine in response to Linthicum's post because his view is a bit askew from what I know is happening in the real world.
Now if you've been reading any of my previous blog posts, you'll know that I believe nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, right before Thanksgiving I blogged about the importance of design time governance for cloud computing in the entry titled, "Governance: A cloud computing strategy's silver lining."
The bottom line is this: if we cut corners at the beginning of the development process, we will almost always create gaps in the cloud resulting in the proliferation of bad code and applications. If in fact more services are accessed, sometimes anonymously, from God knows where, in fact the quality of those services now destined to be used and reused must in fact of an even higher quality. Sounds like design time governance to me.
Now you're probably thinking, ‘of course he's going to push design time governance.' And that's true to a certain extent from the perspective of creating and distributing better software throughout our infrastructures especially as services make their way into the cloud. From a practical point of view, I'd tell anybody purchasing technology to select the vendor that's best suited to addressing his or her particular business needs.
But when it comes to the statement that cloud computing is the death knell for design time governance, I simply have a hard time believing this. Especially coming from Linthicum, the pragmatist.
Sure, aspects of design do go away by using cloud-related resources but it's unimaginable that most serious organizations will believe that run time is enough. On the contrary, utilization of cloud resources brings forward new design governance challenges. For example, when and how should cloud resources be used, do they support the proper technologies, functionality and performance we expect?
I'm not sure which ‘runtime SOA players' David is referring to when he says ‘many of the existing runtime SOA governance players support enough design and implementation capabilities that separate design-time tools are not required.' I'm quite frankly shocked at this statement because to the best of my knowledge, most of those runtime SOA governance players support little to no automated design time governance.
I suspect the theory that cloud computing will kill design time governance is up there with other marketing campaigns that declared XYZ technology is dead. Sure, they make great headlines and get some of us all worked up but they're not very practical or realistic.
If anybody knows who those existing runtime SOA governance vendors are that can supposedly obliterate separate design tools, please drop me a line at jeff@weblayers.com or comment below on whether or not you think the cloud will kill design time governance.