IT looking forward

Video recorded at Microsoft tech days, 16 April 2010, following (and referencing) David Bishop at Microsoft’s “Vision of the Future” presentation. Enjoy!

What personality is your IT department?

Over the years I’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking about the idea of IT maturity models – which are great in principle, but, to be frank, a bit of a blunt instrument when it comes to gauging reality. Many IT organisations are quite comfortable where they are in terms of maturity for example [...]

Towards dynamic systems management methodologies

I do take my hat off to the people who first put together the IT Infrastructure Library, which (like the end of the cold war) celebrates its twenty-year anniversary this year. It’s one thing to learn, both on the job and with little support, the ‘golden rules’ and best practice principles of any discipline. It’s [...]

Master Process Management? Now, there’s a thought.

One of the most fun debates I have had in recent times was with a couple of execs from IBM and Cognos, and with a senior analyst from IDC, at last week’s Information On Demand event in The Hague. The question was innocuous enough – “what do you think is the addressable market for Business [...]

IP Address Management – a latent need, not a market bandwagon

It always seems quite ironic to me when I read how industry analysts are accused of ‘bigging up’ vendor offerings, when I and my peers seem to spend so much of our time resetting the expectations of over-optimistic marketeers. Indeed, without such a position, we would offer a far less useful service – on occasion [...]

Bringing wireless networks into the management fold

As part of the briefing cycle for Aruba’s announced acquisition of Airwave Wireless, I had a very interesting conversation with Roger Hockaday, EMEA marketing director for Aruba. In part it was about the announcement, but it quickly turned (as these things do) to a discussion of the wider picture of wireless, and indeed wired network [...]

Well-meaning, harmless drudge…

… was how the Oxford Dictionary of Computing defined a system administrator. Or at least it did in the second-hand copy of the first edition, I used to own in my university days, 20 years ago (ouch). While I loved the self-effacing humour, only today did I discover it was also a hat-tip to Dr [...]