In order to meet a deadline for new book he's authoring, Nicholas Carr is serializing his famous Harvard Business Review article, "IT Doesn't Matter," on Rough Type. I'm not sure where the series will end, but part four is here. There are internal links on his web log so that readers can navigate from beginning to end.
CIO.com has posted an article, Beyond Vista, in which Microsoft executives acknowledge that the future lies in software-as-service, not a homogeneous working environment where one operating system, carefully provisioned and managed, is the norm.
Vista isn't a part of the software-as-a-service trend, and all the pomp and circumstance around its release mask a growing concern inside the company, one that comes through in executives' demeanor, internal communications and candid conversations about what the IT world will look like five years from now: Software as a service is a threat unlike any the company has faced before....
These web applications will need to work well with current and legacy applications, ranging from customer management and billing software to network administration. So the key question is: can the company succeed by embracing a mixed environment?
Microsoft's CIO, Ron Markezich, says it will be up to Microsoft to learn to work and play nicely with other systems.
The last section in the article, "Can They Pull it Off?" asks a number of questions about the company's ability to adapt to a heterogeneous environment given its size, history and culture. I found the article intriguing.
In related news, Microsoft has announced that Vista and Office 2007 will be available to businesses beginning November 30.
I keep writing about WiFi phones while wondering when they'll move beyond mere curiosities. This Om Malik post, which displays a new clam shell WiFi phone from D-Link, also introduced me to a new term, "PsipTN," that may hold part of the answer.
PsipTN stands for "Public SIP Telephone Network," a "global IP network capable of carrying voice, media, contents and a variety of hosted services while providing interoperability with all PsipTN Ready hardware IP end points and soft clients." The network is maintained by contributing members of PsipTN.org.
It's part of the emerging fixed-mobile environment. British Telecom launched a related service in June, BT Fusion.
NASTD members may download a recent presentation at the Western region meeting on the subject of fixed-mobile convergence here.
AeA, formerly the American Electronics Association, is out with a comprehensive look at technology in each of the states. The overall picture is mixed. After a couple of down years technology employment edged up in 2005, but it still lagged the overall employment trend. Hat tip to Government Technology for the link.
It's raining cats and dogs. Up is down, down is up. Hell freezes over. You get the idea.
Almost two-thirds of physicians in Kentucky have renewed their licenses online in the past few months.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has posted the prepared testimony from panelists scheduled to testify today before the committee on network neutrality.
The list of those scheduled to appear is impressive and includes Vinton Cerf, who spoke at the NASTD annual conference in Providence Rhode Island in 2004.
Om Malik has also included a guest editorial on his web log in favor of network neutral legislation. The Washington Post (free registration required) quotes Verizon as calling for an end to Google's "free lunch," a remark reminiscent of comments by Ed Whitacre of AT&T.
More on network neutrality from Om Malik, who references this Fox News piece on the public policy dimensions now that Congress is set to take up the issue.
Malik, who has written critically of comments by AT&T's Ed Whitacre before, notes a shift in position in Whitacre's most recent statement. The CEO had previously said that service providers -- Google, for example -- were unfairly getting a free ride on the carriers' public networks. Whitacre now appears to agree that customers already pay for the connection (last mile broadband fees), but that service providers should have to cough up some cash for use of the "Internet cloud."
Read Malik's post. There's a lot of public positioning going on now for the benefit of lawmakers, who will undoubtedly be wrestling with this issue as they make new national communications laws.
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner "has approved a potential $300 million, seven-year contract with CGI-AMS for a complete overhaul of the state’s executive branch business processes and systems," according to this FCW.com article. It's the second such large contract in recent weeks. Northrop Grumman received an initial contract in November that could lead to $2 billion in new state government infrastructure investments.
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