Adventures in home working

I wrote this post then lost it!  So this is just a place holder to remind me to get around to writing it again.

links I need are

http://www.novell.com/products/ifolder/

http://haystack.lcs.mit.edu/index.html

http://esw.w3.org/topic/PersonalInformationDisaster

http://www.kde.org/

http://oopm.openoffice.org/

http://news.com.com/2009-1016-5103226.html?tag=nl

http://www.adambosworth.net/archives/000021.html

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office2004/office2004.aspx?pid=highlights

http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/06/17.html#a1025

http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween11.html

and my own blog entries

Which Office Suite? Is shaping up to be a fascinating decision making process.  I am not ready to expose all of my thinking on this topic but it goes something like this:

1. Some people think its easy, MS Office alternatives are cheaper and most people don’t use the bells and whistles in Office so people will migrate provided the alternatives meet peoples core needs.
2. I think its more complex than this and as a minimum the costs of migration, lost productivity, and compatibility and rework need to be factored in
3. Intertia is a big one in Microsofts favour, for a business that has SW Assurance or an EA, the decision is deferred probably for at least 2-3 years after their EA expires and probably longer if they do a lot of data interchange.  That probably means 4-5 years from now!
4. But this is the trivial stuff.  Sure direct and indirect cost comparison is important but I want to consider:
   1. How do people really use Office and is it really true that people only use a small amount of the functionality, and if they do, do they all use a different small amount?
   2. I also want to consider vision, MS has a vision for Office, What is that Vision?
   3. How open is that vision, probably not very!  Is the value proposition worth the lock-in?  Is the ‘integrated innovation’ that Microsoft are fond of worth the lock-in
   4. What’s the vision of the competition, for some of them is it to catch up with Office 97.  For others it’s a complete reworking of the concept.  So it’s important not to just ask the question can it do what office does!
   5. Remember the vision is the important stuff, if the decision is 4-5 years away!

 Maybe that all sounds a bit dry, so why do I think it’s so interesting:

1. Consider how many users of Office there are
2. Consider how much of Microsoft’s profits come from Office and how desperate MS are to keep that profit coming in, desperate people innovate!
3. Consider how important Office is to drive MS Operating system sales and how important OS sales are to MS profits, desperate times two!
4. Consider how desperate the competition is to break the MS Office Suite monopoly
5. Look at the last few versions of Office, basically a stagnant product, innovating sure, but within a straight jacket imposed by the fact that all of the core Office stuff is effectively done, and improvements are marginal.
6. All the real interesting stuff requires further client side, client server, peer to peer and device type to device type integration
7. Hence we see the push in the Office System areas, Mobility, WinFS.

So its integrated integration where the action is from Microsoft’s perspective and they are pouring billions into it, how are the competition addressing integrated innovation, or do they have an alternative perspective.  How do the differing approaches affect real enterprises and real users, (see this blog for the difference).  Thats the question I want to answer!

As a twist the answer may not just depend on the type of person you are, but on the type of device you use.  So maybe portable device users and especially tablet device users will have a more compelling reason to stick with MS because for these people the flexible input technologies, online/offiline experience, home/work integration, device integration etc are more important.

Some of the important links are listed below:

Advantages of the OpenOffice.org XML File Format Used by the StarOffice Office Suite

Migrating to StarOffice Software from Microsoft Office

Draft of OO Product Concept Document

Accepted OO Projects

Microsoft Watch describes the trend at Microsoft towards more integration of Microsoft Server products.  Although the areas of integrations described don’t seem that great to me:

• Management packs for all Windows Server System products that will allow them to be managed by Microsoft Operations Manager 2005;
• Windows Installer and Windows Update support for all Windows Server System products; and
• Consistent methodologies and prescriptive guidance support for all members of the Windows Server System family

There’s more on this topic here:

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3359261

However whilst the Architect in me likes the idea of integrated products, built in a layered infrastructure fashion, with each layer isolated by standards, I don’t see this happening with Microsoft.  What I see is ever tighter integration between products, locking the products into a set that all need to be purchased from MS, and all upgraded together to get real business advantage.  At enterprise scale linked upgrades of products always spells trouble, (making the business case, getting the agreement, managing the disruption, risk), and the assumption of everything from Microsoft is equally troubling, unless their is a REALLY compelling value proposition, and that’s definitely not evident today. 

Loosely integrated products by contrast, ie those that rely on stable and open standards, IMAP, POP, LDAP, RSS?  etc seem to provide for good integration and great flexibility and innovation.  Of course the areas that Microsoft is integrating are not well served by standards, and even if they were the standards are probably not very mature and stable, however the principle still applies.  Loose integration wins in my book over tight integration.  Microsoft always goes for tight.

Microsoft Monitor also discusses the integration point at some length, although you have to talk to an analyst to get the real detail

A little book that concentrates mainly on opportunities for working from home.  If you already have a job and are looking to work from home then its not so appropriate.  But it does give a few hints on issues you might face working from home like feelings of isolation etc.  Not my best find on the subject.  In fact I would recommend te following web site as an alternative to any of the books I have read:

http://www.flexibility.co.uk/index.htm

I used to have an IPAQ years ago and despite using it a lot in the beginning I gradually stopped using it mainly for the following reasons:

1. I did not like having to sync it
2. It was too big to carry around everywhere
3. I did not have a case that gave me instant access to it when carrying it around, so it tended to be in a bag
4. The battery life deteriorated to the point where it could not be relied upon
5. It did not have enough storage space without a great big expansion jacket add-on

Then along came a Blackberry which I instantly fell in love with, I have talked about my love affair with my Blackberry before in my gadget blog.  However I recently started working from home and the subscription costs to the Blackberry service no longer seemed worthwhile so I decided that I would take that money and invest it in something that was a higher priority, I decided I would try a traditional Palm or Pocket PC PDA again.

The process of choosing is a classic example of the tyranny of too much choice.

My experience went something like this:

1. Every day I changed my mind because I loved my Blackberry so much
2. Email and Calendar on a PDA always seemed like a compromise compared to the Blackberry, but everything else I wanted from a PDA either was not an option or didn’t work too well, like tasks for example.
3. I have a company supplied phone and for some reason its incredibly difficult to get GPRS approved so I would have a PDA that was only online at home, making the transition from the BB even more difficult
4. On the days when I did decide to go the PDA route I alternated between Palm and Pocket PC.
5. Each day I switched from wanting a lovely large high resolution screen at all costs, to wanting a small Bluetooth and wireless equipped machine

I finally managed to make a decision to swap from the BB as follows:

1. I gave myself the money from a years BB subscription and asked myself how I wanted to spend it
2. I decided that it was useful to break the instant email addiction
3. I decided that when I was out of the house it was most likely that I was not working so getting a device that had many non work related distractions would be a good idea

I made the Palm/Pocket PC decision as follows:

1. I run Windows 2003 Server on my desktop and I was able to make sure that Active Sync worked fine and that Wireless worked fine with Pocket PC before I made the purchase
2. I had quite a lot of software left over from my old IPAQ.  Particularly eWallet and Pocket Informant which I really liked
3. I use Lotus Notes at work and came across some fabulous synchronisation software called mNotes and I was able to check this out before I made the decision, (its available for Palm too but I couldn’t test it)
4. I was familiar with Pocket PC and knew that it was good enough

I made the decision on which form factor to get as follows:

1. I knew from past experience that having a small device was important if I was to be successful in motivating myself to carry it around
2. The small devices were cheaper than the half or full VGA models
3. The VGA models had problems with some applications using the screen in VGA mode that required hacks to get around and whilst these seemed to work for most people they seemed to stop WIFI working for some people
4. The VGA models were first generation.  Next generation models were likely to be much better, but I didn’t want to wait
5. I decided that if the next generation models were really great then I would do a bit of cascading and make my eldest daughter very happy when she starts High School in September!

I finally decided on an IPAQ 4150 because:

1. HP has a good reputation and they are going to be in the market for the long term
2. I had an IPAQ before and that gave me confidence
3. It is very small
4. It has a great screen
5. It has a good software bundle
6. It has Bluetooth and WIFI
7. I found a great case, holster style that fits on my belt and is as close to the Blackberry case as you can get.  That decision was easy I wanted something exactly like the Blackberry, this is it.
8. I got a good deal and had money left over for the case and 512MB storage card
9. Battery life seemed ok, but a high capacity battery is available if I have problems

Just finished this book.  I really enjoyed it, fewer characters and better developed, a bit dark but very well developed and with fewer tricks and magic, just good old story telling.