There’s a great blog post on Found|Read about free or nearly free software offered as web based services. I love #3 - Don’t do that custom development!
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On Friday night, I turned on my laptop and was unable to boot into Windows. Error messages got progressively worse with everything I tried and everything I found on Google led to a “you’re screwed…reload Windows” diagnosis. Considering that one of my early posts was about preparing for technology failure, I had a decent handle on getting everything restored. But now I have another thing to add to the plan:
Ina Sebastian at Jupiter Research wrote about a ComputerWorld prediction that Starbucks will evenutally offer free WiFi service. Personally, I avoid Starbucks in favor of coffee shops that offer free connections. My guess is that Starbucks has found this to be a popular stance. I believe free WiFi will become expected and that SMBs will be able to offer real value to their customers through creative use of this connectivity.
Question: You run a destination type SMB like Starbucks. How do you use the WiFi service you are offering them to build a community of your customers? Do you allow them to engage each other a la Facebook or MySpace? Do you give them the opportunity to "speak" to you directly?
I wrote about the importance of SMBs keeping processes and systems simple. I recently began work with a new client that was searching for ways to increase knowledge sharing across their organization. They were just starting the development of a new corporate intranet. They had spec’d out their needs and identified a sub-site to have custom developed. The analysts and developers did a nice job and it looks great.
But I recommended they hold on the custom development. They needed to evaluate MS Sharepoint’s capabilities before proceeding. Why? The basic corporate intranet portal has been built 100+ times already. Sharepoint, Plone, Liferay, JBoss, DotNetNuke and many others are decent out-of-the-box foundations for an internal site. So there’s just no reason to pursue custom development for this type of project.
But why Sharepoint? This client is also upgrading their core enterprise system. Turns out that the system based on a MS platform and uses Sharepoint for document management. Doesn’t it make a lot of sense to evaluate whether or not the platform used by your core enterprise system will work for the rest of your needs as well?
Right now, they seem to like Sharepoint and we’re now doing a test project to prove it to the company. If the test fails, there are other options. But custom development for an intranet should be a last resort.
I posted that I’d be trying out the new Lotus Symphony suite of office productivity tools. Well that didn’t take. I probably should have changed over the file properties for xls, doc, and ppt files to open with Symphony. Since I didn’t, I hardly used the tools at all.
Here’s the rub with Symphony and the other MS Office alternatives. Microsoft Office reached dominance not because of the functions that your average user cares about and that every basic office suite does well. The tools were widely adopted because introductory level developers (like me) were able to quickly build department level applications that helped improve staff productivity. In the absence of any real developer tools, I don’t believe Lotus Symphony or any other MS Office alternative has a shot at being anything more than a niche product.
I hate that I didn’t do a decent evaluation of the Lotus tools. But the reality is that I spend my time working with tools that fit the environments my clients have in place. As long as organizations have one person who has gone past the basic data entry functions of Excel, I will never convince them that an Office alternative will work for them. And if they’re so small that they don’t have a serious investment in MS Office, why would I ever recommend they start out using tools that can’t be extended as their needs grow?
