Tech trend punditry from the blogosphere
Tim Berry has some things to say about the future, or at least things to say about Gene Marks‘ version of the future. Marks wrote an article called “Tech Trends to Ignore” on Businessweek.com. In a further effort to waste bandwidth and time, I will give my own perspective.
- Radio Frequency ID (RFID) - Marks says “many companies can ignore RFID [until] it comes down in price”. Berry thinks it will be “cool” when it comes out. Personally, I wish I could implement it right now so that my inventory control would become more accurate. Nothing beats having a live, accurate inventory at all times. I think it will become a strategic advantage for the early adopter, letting a small business compete with a larger entity. Also note that Marks’ company does not sell it….
- Virtualization - the practice of running multiple people off of one computer, or using a Linux PC to provide a Windows environment. Marks says no, we can’t get Outlook to work right, why put more people on one machine. Berry says that he loves running Windows on his Mac. My take? We are using a form of virtualization right now, by multiple people sharing a web server. As someone who has to mainain the 18 PCs at work, I can tell you right now that I would love to only do ONE update instead of EIGHTEEN of them. But of course, Marks sells Outlook support and Quickbooks, why would he be in favor of virtualization?
- Software as a Service (SaaS) - Leading contenders are Salesforce.com and Netsuite, both of whom Marks does not trust (he sells Goldmine and Quickbooks, see a trend here?). Berry thinks it is a trend worth watching - my company uses it daily. I got so fed up with managing mailboxes, Outlook and SPAM that I switched the whole company over to Google Apps. Now I pay $50 per year per user and have NO headaches. My issue with Salesforce.com and Netsuite is the pricing. When I looked at Netsuite, the pitch was $99 per user, per year. By the time my set-up was to be configured, it was going to be $10,000 up front and another $1000 per month. What a deal. I went with open-source CRM called SugarCRM and Quickbooks. Cost? $300. Saas will work when the pricing is for the product and not for the salesteam. Google got the price right, the others haven’t.
- Apple - I can’t tell what Marks’ view is. Berry likes ‘em. I have Apple, Windows and Linux at work. My personal preference would be for Windows, and I have found that Mac is not all that it is made out to be. But then I have only been using it for three years, so maybe one day soon I will get religion. Personally I don’t think it will matter. Linux would be the one to watch for me, because the independent developers in places like India and China and the rest are just getting started. Think about the impact of the One Laptop per Child program in a few years…
- Anything Green - Marks is for anything cost-effective that is green, which from his point of view is none of it. Berry is for greening. Myself? I wonder why there isn’t more choice. I run a manufacturing company, and for the life of me I can’t see why there aren’t companies focusing more on volume products that can be used now. Instead of huge wind generators, why not $199 ones that are relatively small? Maybe I could put 10 of them together and power my house. I am for cost effective green. I think that it is easier to achieve than you might believe, just in small boring ways like CF light bulbs. I have a resident hippie at work to help out with ideas. Maybe that is Marks’ problem, no hippies on staff.
- Social Networking (Facebook, Myspace et al) - Marks says don’t bother for small businesses. Of course, people were saying don’t bother with a website not too long ago. I think it is worth doing if you have someone on staff who is used to doing it. Don’t bother spending a bunch of money outsourcing it at this point in time.
- Open Source Software - Marks says you need “propeller heads” to get it to work. He says it takes time to customize an open-source product. He seems to forget that he makes a living supporting, customizing and selling off the shelf software, and this open-source stuff is threatening his income. For myself, we use a mixture of open and closed software. SugarCRM for customer management, this blog is done with Wordpress, our servers run Linux and Apache. Closed source software we use is Windows, Quickbooks, Office and some others. If I had a choice it would be open-source all the way - and I don’t even have any propeller-heads on staff.
- Windows XP - Marks says that XP is dead, long live Vista. I think he needs his head examined. Vista is so bad that I have replaced it in the accounting department with XP. It seems that Vista won’t play nice with a networked multi-user Quickbooks setup - something even Intuit acknowledges.
- Microsoft and Yahoo - no one cares. Me either.
- Virtual Worlds - at last Marks and I agree. Berry had already stopped commenting at this point. Virtual Worlds are at this point a waste of time and money. Let the Fortune 500 have it, us wee little businesspeople are better off spending money elsewhere.
So, as near as I can tell, Marks’ opinions are closely lined up with his financial interests. It must be nice having a pulpit in a magazine to promote yourself. Berry on the other hand reveals himself in his bio:
I’m president and founder of Palo Alto Software, founder of bplans.com, and a co-founder of Borland International. …. I’m the principal author of Business Plan Pro. As a consultant I worked with Apple Computer steadily for 14 years of repeat business — consultant, not an employee — doing (among other things) 14 years of annual plans for Apple Latin America, Apple Pacific, and Apple Japan. Apple Latin America grew from $2 million to $37 million annual sales while I was doing its annual business plans, and Apple Japan grew from $187 million to $1.5 billion in annual sales while I was doing its planning (not that my planning was responsible, but at least it didn’t screw it up).
Hmm, maybe that is why Berry likes Apple? 14 years of consulting checks?