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Showing posts from 2018

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

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In The Beginning The early 2000s was the heyday of outsourced IT. Better global telco networks, higher speed internet and remote working meant offshore IT professionals could be easily deployed to implement and support Monolithic systems like Oracle and SAP databases. This involved kind of longterm transformation programs that guaranteed revenue streams for the IT services companies doing the implementation and maintenance work.  And for a time, it was good A golden age of profitability and expansion for IT services had arrived. Clients had straight-forward but manpower-intensive problems that meant long luxurious engagements where the technologies were either legacy or emerging. Want to reduce costs of your IT overhead? Improve efficiencies and streamline processes? Take 5, no better yet, 10 years to implement the latest Monolithic information system. And of course you have to use an external implementation partner to provide the necessary  specialists...

Where are they now - Google Glass

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It's been nearly half a decade since the Big G's foray into the consumer electronics market. Despite some clumsy attempts to make Glass fashionable , complete with a reality TV worthy scandal between a then-married Brin and a Google "cheerleader , there was a shortfall in terms of public interest and appeal. My last post on Viral Mojo (way back in 2013, time flies!) highlighted the potential, or lack of it, for Glass to go mainstream and create a new category of wearables. In the final analysis Glass failed at capturing the public imagination or turn Google into a viable competitor to Apple as a category definer. Even with its past experience with the Chromebook it's easy to say Google was stepping away from its core competency as a software vendor and lacked the organisational DNA necessary to execute truly category-defining wins. From a purely business perspective this would be true and could be perceived as a case of operational expertise, along with hype, fai...