Joel Orr

Manufacturing Automation editorial: SaaS not profitable?

joel.orr@gmail.com — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:00:00 GMT

In an interesting editorial, Jeff Moad quotes Larry Ellison to the effect that Oracle has not managed to make money with "software as a service" (SaaS) applications, and that he thinks it's a major challenge that is probably slowing down some rollouts.

It's a fascinating point - and a sobering one. Investors and customers alike seem to be demanding that software vendors convert to SaaS as soon as possible. The customer benefits are obvious--less hardware; less IT management; easier to expense; software is always up to date. But if it is to work for vendors, the economics have to make sense.

According to Moad, Salesforce.com, SAP, and others simply set prices too low. That surprises me; was the expectation to make it up in volume?

CAD vendors are saluting the SaaS flag with more and more vigor, although bandwidth issues have limited full-blown transition to the new model. Sounds like a squeeze is coming for vendors; if your competitor is offering SaaS, you'll have to, regardless of profitability issues.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this issue. Please comment.

Warmly,
Joel

My granddaughter, Ruth Cooper, is a new mom!

joel.orr@gmail.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:00:00 GMT

If you've been to COFES, you've met Ruth. Her husband Jason called me a little while ago to say that Ruth gave birth today at 8:27 pm EDT to a healthy boy! Name, weight, etc. to follow...Ruth is feeling great, as is Jason the new dad - and of course, the entire family!

Happy great-grandpa Joel

MSC buys MacNeal

joel.orr@gmail.com — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Richard MacNeal (the "M" in MSC) has sold his company to MSC. Read the press release here.

But before you go there, you might want to head over here, and download the new Cyon Research report on the MCAE market, to gain a better understanding of the terrain in this realm. The report is free.

SuperNova 2008

joel.orr@gmail.com — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:00:00 GMT

I'm at SuperNova 2008, in San Francisco. Here are some of the session topics:

The Theory and Practice of Networks • Does Telecom Have a Future? • Networked Business Models • Whose Social Graph? • The Internet is People: What We Know, and What it Means • Cyberspace Constitutional Moments • The Meaning of Openness • All the World’s a Game: What the Web can Learn from Virtual Worlds • Liquid Conversations and Distributed Content • Going Green: Toward a More Sustainable Technology Industry • Who is Driving Marketing Innovation? • Monetization for Today’s Internet… and Tomorrow’s • Wireless Disruption • Privacy and Security in the Network Age • Does the Media Get the Message?

"The shift to network-based computing, services, business processes, marketing, entertainment, social relationships, connectivity, and culture will challenge our assumptions about how the world works. Those who fail to appreciate the complex implications are at risk. Those who can take advantage of the power of the new network face extraordinary opportunities."

If you want to experience some of the talks, there is a live feed (and later, recordings) at this link.

This is the seventh year for SuperNova, and it is a well-connected conference: There is free wireless and there are powerstrips throughout the hall. Almost everyone here is typing on a laptop while the speakers are speaking. For the speakers, it has to be like looking out into a room where 400 people are doing their homework. Odd.

Some random observations:

Average age is 40+
Many people wearing black
Macs seem to greatly outnumber PCs; I think it's a San Francisco/Silicon Valley phenomenon
Many attendees are simultaneously surfing their phones (iPhones, Nokia 95s) and the web
Using mozes.com, we were able to text messages from the audience to a large screen behind yesterday's wrap-up panel; some interesting, some inane comments
Lots of Europeans; I think the strong Euro, weak dollar has a lot to do with that

You'd think it would zing with power and novelty - but it doesn't. Instead, it feels remarkably academic, full of interesting thoughts and conversations, but with no sense of The Next Big Thing. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm jaded. But I'm having trouble relating it all to the world of engineering automation.

What are your thoughts? Check out some of the links and let me know where I'm missing it.

The Ninth COFES is over, and I am thrilled, drained, energized - and have no clue as to what it all means! Help me!

joel.orr@gmail.com — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Life goes by so fast! COFES 2008 was, well, outstanding - even more the prior ones, each of which outdid the ones before. But so much keeps going on! There is hardly time for thought, let alone reflection; stuff keeps happening too quickly for me to make sense of.

We're doing a much better job of posting stuff quickly; explore this site, and you will find recordings, videos, and some comments on what went on at COFES, with more to come - hopefully, before it's all old hat...

What do we do about this phenomenon that signal processing geeks call 'aliasing' - the challenges of representing a high-frequency set of events in a low-frequency medium. Stuff is pouring in as I sit here, and there is no way I can assimilate it all, let alone its implications. I can't even begin to assimilate the ruminations of gurus who are quick to analyze and summarize - and I certainly don't have time to think about how good those analyses are...I know I'm preaching to the converted here. You have told me, at COFES and elsewhere, that you experience this same "swamped" feeling.

I know that what most of us cherish from COFES is the personal connections we make there, the results of the "planned serendipity" that is the heart of COFES. How do you capture these events? Paper-based notes? Recordings? Pictures? Computer-based notes? Email threads? Blogs? Follow-up calls? I do all of these; they all contribute to my building of my personal web of connections.

What else do you do? How do you make sense of all this? What filters do you use? I need help, and I am more and more learning from the wisdom of crowds. C'mon, comment!

At the CMU West "Mobile Future" conference in Santa Clara, CA

joel.orr@gmail.com — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:00:00 GMT

I'm sitting in this wonderful conference, full of ideas from all the many powerful presentations I've experienced so far, and the people I've met - and I find myself actually distressed that the slides and more are not already online -- nor is there any indication that they will be! What does that say about us leading-edge scouts? Here's some text from the event site:

In a not-too-distant future, the computing platform of choice for a significant number of consumers will be a hand-held device. Signs of this trend are already apparent in Asia and Scandinavia, and all indicators suggest that this evolution transforms the lives and work of individuals in ways that are both chaotic and enriching. Given the diversity of global communications mechanisms, how can network operators, software vendors, and handset providers accelerate this evolution? The Mobile Future brings together experts from industry and the research community to share and discuss their visions of possible futures, along with technology and business models for achieving them.

With panelists from 25 great companies and two great universities, the discussions around these and related topics promise to be lively and provocative. Join us for an exciting day of interactive discussions that will offer a framework for the mobile future and pointers for creators, investors, and customers on where the best opportunities will be found.

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Under-$10k 3D printer announced by 3D Systems

joel.orr@gmail.com — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:00:00 GMT

3D Systems, the company that coined "stereolithography," has just announced a printer for less than $10,000.

When the Apple Laserwriter came out in 1985, it cost $7,000 - and opened the era of "desktop publishing." Of course it's not the same thing, but perhaps there are some interesting parallels for us to think about.

At the very least, it will be something of a test of the assumptions of those like Dassault CEO Bernard Charles, who believe that 3D is a universal communication language. Simple CAD puts 3D modeling within reach of all; now this printer puts 3D "hard copy" within reach of many. I'm curious to see what will happen!

World 2.0

joel.orr@gmail.com — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 07:00:00 GMT

On Dave Gurteen's knowledge management blog, a fascinating take on the "2.0" meme:
I recently spent the whole of January in SE Asia; giving talks and running knowledge cafes in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. As always I learnt as much as a I taught at these events.

Most of us understand what Web 2.0 is all about as we move from a read-only web to a read-write or participatory web.

And we are starting to come to grips with so called Enterprise 2.0 where the concept and technologies and social tools of Web 2.0 are moving from the open web into organizations.It is still early days and there are many issues to be grappled with as we try to balance the structure and stability of the old world with the more fluid and complex nature of the new.

But the "2.0 meme" is starting to affect everything. In a talk in Kuala Lumpur I was asked how you implement Enterprise 2.0 and I was talking about some of the barriers when someone spoke up and said "We will never have Enterprise 2.0 until we have Managers 2.0!” In other words it was managers and their out-dated mind sets that was a major barrier to change.

And a few days later while giving another talk at the National Library in Singapore I found us talking about Libraries 2.0 and Learning 2.0. It then hit me that “2.0” thinking was permeating everything. People were also taking about Business 2.0 and Education 2.0.So what does this mean in its broadest sense?

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Global warming? Maybe. But we should still work on alternatives to fossil fuels.

joel.orr@gmail.com — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Amazing how even the most scientifically-minded become advocates of causes whose scientific basis still holds many open questions. There are systemic reasons for this, and they are not new, and I am very far from the first to point this out. I'm reading an anthology of editorials from Analog (formerly Astounding) Science Fiction magazine, written in the forties, fifties, and sixties, by John W. Campbell. He has much to say about the institutional need to quash alternatives--in medicine, very notably, but also in all sciences.

The referenced article below points out that there is a lot of emotion behind climate issues today--but that the implications of the questionable conclusions hold regardless. This is from the American Society for Engineering Educators.

Canadian editorial criticizes climate "hysterics."

In a signed editorial for Canada's Daily Observer (3/20), columnist Lorrie Goldstein wrote that "[g]lobal warming is the gift that keeps on giving to climate hysterics." Goldstein adds that supporters of global warming "will never be called to account for their simple-minded campaign to demonize fossil fuels" because "everyone alive today will be dead long before we know how much of the scientific 'consensus' on global warming is correct." She pointed out that "[t]here are huge unknowns, competing theories and debates within the scientific community about what will happen, where, when and how severe." Global "climate is always changing and was changing long before we arrived," she wrote.

Goldstein agrees with U.S. Foreign Service officers Teresa Chin Jones and David T. Jones, who wrote a 2007 article titled The Zen of Global Warming. She concluded that they argued "for a pragmatic approach -- energy conservation and industrial innovation to develop alternative energy sources, based on the precautionary principle that, regardless of global warming theory, we know the Earth's population is increasing and that non-renewable energy sources" are exactly "that -- non-renewable."

Joel Spolsky in Inc. magazine - a great article on innovation

joel.orr@gmail.com — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Spolsky is a software entrepreneur in New York. His blog, "Joel on Software," is enormously popular for the wisdom and down-to-earth strength of his writing.

He now writes a monthly piece for "Inc."; this article is on the power of "impossible" ideas. Worth checking out.