Who is your customer?

by Volker Weber

Ray has posted a long rant after resting his weblog for almost a month. It is a long and winding story, touching on design points in Notes and Groove, that I don't completely agree with. What I find most interesting is his conclusion:

The technology leaders of the past - enterprise IT - are now focused (for very good economic reason!!) on cost reduction and efficiency, on "fast solutions", and on a very tough regulatory environment, through strict controls. Liability, and the sheer mass and difficulty of managing broad ICT deployments encourages conservatism, and this won't be changing anytime soon. The new leader in ICT is the fast-moving, pragmatic yet open minded ultra-small business or virtual organization.

I could not agree more. But then again: Why is Groove Networks focussing its sales & marketing on the large enterprise?

More >

PS: I said I don't agree with everything he says. Here's why: Notes' biggest problem is present in Groove as well. It is a closed environment. You can only play if you are "in". Yes, you can access a Notes server (a.k.a. Domino) via all sorts of open protocols. But the true power is only available to Notes clients or servers (iNotes or Quickplace offline capabilities depend on a hidden local thin server). Groove has exaclty the same problem. That's why you don't play if you are on Linux or a Mac. So far you don't even communicate, let alone collaborate.

Comments

Ozzie's posting puzzles me. And I fully agree with your criticism, Volker.
After all, why designing an "architecture" for communication & collaboration which is tight to one OS and some related products? More to the point, isn't Groove a multi-device application rather than an architecture and can it ever be more than that?
Isn't it an "afterthought" (to use Ozzie's word)to fit in with that particular monopolist?

Volker, I agree totally with you.

Ozzie talks about "fast-moving, pragmatic yet open minded ultra-small business or virtual organization" but sells Groove architecture mainly to Fortune 100 companies...

Post a comment











Shall I remember this for you?




Use your full name and a working email address. Unless you want your comment to be removed. No kidding.



Recent comments

Sascha Westphal on How to Setup Your Own Web Proxy Server For Free with Google App Engine at 19:19
Moritz Schroeder on The Single Sign On at 13:43
Nils Halvorsen on How to Setup Your Own Web Proxy Server For Free with Google App Engine at 22:35
Mitch Cohen on How to Setup Your Own Web Proxy Server For Free with Google App Engine at 22:12
Nick Daisley on The Single Sign On at 20:54
Volker Weber on The Single Sign On at 14:17
Tobias Hauser on The Single Sign On at 13:12
Martin Böhm on As if Palm needed more problems at 13:03
Ralf Stellmacher on Zitat des Tages at 11:40
Philipp Sury on The Single Sign On at 11:33
Jan-Piet Mens on The Single Sign On at 10:48
Chris Frei on The Single Sign On at 09:55
Volker Weber on iPhone OS 3.1.3 brings back Internet Tethering to unlocked iPhones at 00:18
Steven Payne on iPhone OS 3.1.3 brings back Internet Tethering to unlocked iPhones at 00:15
Robert Dahlem on Zitat des Tages at 22:22
Volker Weber on Steve Jobs at the 2010 Oscars at 22:21
Richard Kaufmann on Who wants a free Sonos? Better: who wants four? at 21:23
Jan Schierkolk on Steve Jobs at the 2010 Oscars at 18:47
Volker Weber on iPhone OS 3.1.3 brings back Internet Tethering to unlocked iPhones at 18:44
Steven Zwerink on iPhone OS 3.1.3 brings back Internet Tethering to unlocked iPhones at 18:33
Ragnar Schierholz on Who wants a free Sonos? Better: who wants four? at 18:31
Ragnar Schierholz on Zitat des Tages at 18:30
Keith Taylor on Who wants a free Sonos? Better: who wants four? at 17:59
John James on Who wants a free Sonos? Better: who wants four? at 17:42
Volker Weber on Who wants a free Sonos? Better: who wants four? at 17:40

Ceci n'est pas un blog

vowe.net is a personal website published by Volker Weber a.k.a. vowe. I am an author, consultant and systems architect based in Darmstadt, Germany.

rss Click here to subscribe

Hello

About me
Contact
Publications
Certificates
Frequently asked questions
Join the network

Twitter Updates

More >

Local time is 00:27

visitors.gif
102 visitors online

News

Other sources of news, imported into my own format to make them more accessible:

Schlagzeilen
Weather

Archives

As most of my articles roll off the front page rather quickly, I am making an archive of previous posts available here. You can also use the handy search box at the top of the page if you are looking for something particular.

Last 30 days
More archives

Got the T-shirt?

Got the T-shirt?

Systems Architecture

This site runs on an Apache web server on top of the Linux operating system. The content is managed with MovableType which is implemented in Perl. Last but not least the HTML code your browser sees is put together with PHP.

© 1992-2010 Volker Weber.
All Rights Reserved.

Impressum