As I often say I am really focussed on delivering a great end user experience to my customers, Omar describes some of the challenges to achieving this (his context is Microsoft vs iPod): You do not own the end to end experience (you make the software but not the hardware in the...
This week it’s the turn of the desktop database. Dabble DB looks like an amazingly flexible tool to create custom web databases (the image shows a database rendered as a calendar). It’s similar to tools in the enterprise space from Oracle and also SharePoint lists which get even more powerful...
I work in desktop out-sourcing, and am feeling increasingly uneasy as I see the rise of web 2.0 companies. The capabilities are increasingly compelling and new concepts like the live clipboard are starting to show how the integration benefits provided by the traditional desktop can be extended to the web. ...
Marc describes some of the uncomfortable realities on his great blog this week: You can rail all you want about standards and how Microsoft’s current Office document is open and how, evil empire that they are, they’ll find a way to poison the well with their new XML-based formats. And...
I have often noticed that the most impressive people I work with are the ones who ask the best questions, Hal has some hints on how to do this on Reforming Project Management. His key insight is to use the following two questions, in addition to the traditional who, what,...
I am really big on “user experience” and this is a useful article on the subject, here is one of my favourite bits: one core principle stands out large from all of these various experiences. The inversion of control, from the organisation to the individual, is going to become increasingly...
I have just read this article that describes the way that Bill Gates works, it’s very similar to my normal work style, I bet I spent a lot less on my office though! I have added my comments to the article in blue: On my desk I have three screens,...
The idea seems to be to use a single client to manage all of a teams interactions around a specific activity. It seems like a great idea in principle, although I have a few concerns about how it will work in practice: I am worried that the process of publishing...
I have Office 2007 running now on my Tablet and Laptop, both running XP, but my desktop machine (2003 server) is not something I would risk putting Office 2007 on yet, mainly because I collaborate with too many people who are on previous versions of Office. At least that was...
Graham is grappling with the question, what is an Architect? I used to be an IT architect and I really struggled with the role, on some days I thought I was a pre-sales technical consultant, on others I was a programme manager, on others a technical trouble shooter and most...